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AN  AFRICAN  ADVENTURE 


BY  THE   SAME   AUTHOR 

ADVENTURES  IN  INTERVIEWING 

PEACE  AND  BUSINESS 

S.  O.  S: 

A&ierica's  Miracle  m  France 

THE  BUSINESS  OF  WAR 
THE  REBIRTH  OF  RUSSIA 
THE  WAR  AFTER  THE  WAR 
LEONARD  WOOD: 

Prophet  of  Preparedness 


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KING  ALBERT 


AN  AFRICAN 
ADVENTURE 


BY 

ISAAC  F.  MARCOSSON 

ATTTHOR   OF   "  ADVENTUBES   IN   INTEHVIEWING,"    ETC. 


NEW  YORK:    JOHN  LANE  COMPANY 

LONDON;  JOHN  LANE,  THE  BODLEY  HEAD 

MCMXXI 


COPYRIGHT • I92I 
BY    THE    CURTIS    PUBLISHING    COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT -1921 
BY    JOHN    LANE    COMPANY 


TBK    PLIMPTON     PRESS 
MORWOOP-MASS'U'S'A 


College 
library 


To 
THOMAS  F.  RYAN 

WHO   FIRST   BEHELD    THE   VISION 

OF  AMERICA   IN    THE 

CONGO 


FOREWORD 

FROM  earliest  boyhood  when  I  read  the  works  of 
.  Henry  M.  Stanley  and  books  about  Cecil  Rhodes, 
Africa  has  called  to  me.  It  was  not  until  I  met 
General  Smuts  during  the  Great  War,  however,  that  I 
had  a  definite  reason  for  going  there. 

After  these  late  years  of  blood  and  battle  America 
and  Europe  seemed  tame.  Besides,  the  economic 
war  after  the  war  developed  into  a  struggle  as  bitter 
as  the  actual  physical  conflict.  Discord  and  discon- 
tent became  the  portion  of  the  civilized  world.  I  wan- 
ted to  get  as  far  as  possible  from  all  this  social  unrest 
and  financial  dislocation. 

So  much  interest  was  evinced  in  the  magazine 
articles  which  first  set  forth  the  record  of  my  jour- 
ney that  I  was  prompted  to  expand  them  into  this 
book.  It  may  enable  the  reader  to  discover  a  section 
of  the  one-time  Dark  Continent  without  the  hard- 
ships which  I  experienced. 

I.  F.  M. 

New  York,  April,  1921 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  Smuts 15 

11.   "Cape-to-Cairo" 57 

III.  Rhodes  and  Rhodesia 103 

IV.  The  Congo  Today 139 

V.  On  the  Congo  River 177 

VI.  America  in  the  Congo •      .  225 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

King  Albert Frontispiece 

Groote  Schuur facing  page  28 

General  J.  C.  Smuts 44 

Mr.  Marcosson's  Route  in  Africa 56 

Cecil  Rhodes 76 

The  Premier  Diamond  Mine 90 

Victoria  Falls 102 

Cultivating  Citrus  Land  in  Rhodesia 110 

The  Grave  of  Cecil  Rhodes 132 

A  Katanga  Copper  Mine 138 

Lord  Leverhulme 144 

Robert  Williams 144 

On  the  Lualaba 150 

A  View  on  the  Kasai 150 

A  Station  Scene  at  Kongola 156 

A  Native  Market  at  Kindu 162 

Native  Fish  Traps  at  Stanley  Falls 168 

The  Massive  Bangalas 176 

Congo  Women  in  State  Dress 176 

Central  African  Pygmies 182 

Women  Making  Pottery 190 

The  Congo  Pickaninny 190 

The  Heart  of  the  Equatorial  Forest 198 

Natives  Piling  Wood 204 

A  Wood  Post  on  the  Congo 204 

Residential  Quarters  at  Alberta 210 

The  Comte  de  Flandre 210 

A  Typical  Oil  Palm  Forest 216 


1«  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Bringing  in  the  Palm  Fruit  facing  page  216 

A  Specimen  of  Cicatrization 220 

A  Sankuru  Woman  Playing  Native  Draughts 220 

The  Belgian  Congo 224 

Thomas  F.  Ryan 228 

Jean  Jadot 236 

Emile  Francqui 242 

A  Belle  of  the  Congo 246 

Women  of  the  Batetelas 246 

Fishermen  on  the  Sankuru 254 

The  Falls  of  the  Sankuru 254 

A  Congo  Diamond  Mine 260 

How  the  Mines  Are  Worked 260 

Gravel  Carriers  at  a  Congo  Mine 266 

Congo  Natives  Picking  out  Diamonds 266 

Washing  out  Gravel 272 

Donald  Doyle  and  Mr.  Marcosson 272 

The  Park  at  Boma 278 

A  Street  in  Matadi 278 

A  General  View  of  Matadi 282 


AN  AFRICAN  ADVENTURE 


AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

CHAPTER   I  — SMUTS 


TURN  the  searchlight  on  the  political  and  eco- 
nomic chaos  that  has  followed  the  Great  War 
and  you  find  a  surprising  lack  of  real  leader- 
ship. Out  of  the  mists  that  enshroud  the  world  welter 
only  three  commanding  personalities  emerge.  In  Eng- 
land Lloyd  George  survives  amid  the  storm  of  party 
clash  and  Irish  discord.  Down  in  Greece  Venizelos, 
despite  defeat,  remains  an  impressive  figure  of  high 
ideals  and  uncompromising  patriotism.  Off  in  South 
Africa  Smuts  gives  fresh  evidence  of  his  vision  and 
authority. 

Although  he  was  Britain's  principal  prop  during 
the  years  of  agony  and  disaster,  Lloyd  George  is,  in 
the  last  analysis,  merely  an  eloquent  and  spectacular 
politician  with  the  genius  of  opportunism.  One  reason 
why  he  holds  his  post  is  that  there  is  no  one  to  take  his 
place,  —  another  commentary  on  the  paucity  of  great- 
ness. There  is  no  visible  heir  to  Venizelos.  Besides, 
Greece  is  a  small  country  without  international  touch 
and  interest.  Smuts,  youngest  of  the  trio,  looms  up 
as  the  most  brilliant  statesman  of  his  day  and  his  career 
has  just  entered  upon  a  new  phase. 

He  is  the  dominating  actor  in  a  drama  that  not  only 
affects  the  destiny  of  the  whole  British  Empire,  but  has 

15 


16  AN  AFRICAN  ADVENTURE 

significance  for  every  civilized  nation.  The  quality  of 
striking  contrast  has  always  been  his.  The  one-time 
Boer  General,  who  fought  Roberts  and  Kitchener 
twenty  years  ago,  is  battling  with  equal  tenacity  for  the 
integrity  of  the  Imperial  Union  born  of  that  war.  Not 
in  all  history  perhaps,  is  revealed  a  more  picturesque 
situation  than  obtains  in  South  Africa  today.  You 
have  the  whole  Nationalist  movement  crystallized  into 
a  single  compelling  episode.  In  a  word,  it  is  contempo- 
rary Ireland  duplicated  without  violence  and  ex- 
tremism. 

I  met  General  Smuts  often  during  the  Great  War. 
He  stood  out  as  the  most  intellectually  alert,  and  in 
some  respects  the  most  distinguished  figure  among  the 
array  of  nation-guiders  with  whom  I  talked,  and  I  in- 
terviewed them  all.  I  saw  him  as  he  sat  in  the  British 
War  Cabinet  when  the  German  hosts  were  sweeping 
across  the  Western  Front,  and  when  the  German  sub- 
marines were  making  a  shambles  of  the  high  seas.  I 
heard  him  speak  with  persuasive  force  on  public  occa- 
sions and  he  was  like  a  beacon  in  the  gloom.  He  had 
come  to  England  in  1917  as  the  representative  of  Gen- 
eral Botha,  the  Prime  Minister  of  the  Union  of  South 
Africa,  to  attend  the  Imperial  Conference  and  to  re- 
main a  comparatively  short  time.  So  great  was  the 
need  of  him  that  he  did  not  go  home  until  after  the 
Peace  had  been  signed.  He  signed  the  Treaty  under 
protest  because  he  believed  it  was  uneconomic  and  it 
has  developed  into  the  irritant  that  he  prophesied  it 
would  be. 

In  those  war  days  when  we  foregathered,  Smuts 
often  talked  of  "the  world  that  would  be."  The  real 
Father  of  the  League  of  Nations  idea,  he  believed  that 
out  of  the  immense  travail  would  develop  a  larger  fra- 


SMUTS  17 

temity,  economically  sound  and  without  sentimentality. 
It  was  a  great  and  yet  a  practical  dream. 

More  than  once  he  asked  me  to  come  to  South 
Africa.  I  needed  little  urging.  From  my  boyhood  the 
land  of  Cecil  Rhodes  has  always  held  a  lure  for  me. 
Smuts  invested  it  with  fresh  interest.    So  I  went. 

The  Smuts  that  I  found  at  close  range  on  his  native 
heath,  wearing  the  mantle  of  the  departed  Botha,  carry- 
ing on  a  Government  with  a  minority,  and  with  the 
shadow  of  an  internecine  war  brooding  on  the  horizon, 
was  the  same  serene,  clear-thinking  strategist  who  had 
raised  his  voice  in  the  Allied  Councils.  Then  the  enemy 
was  the  German  and  the  task  was  to  destroy  the  menace 
of  militarism.  Now  it  was  his  own  unreconstructed 
Boer  —  blood  of  his  blood,  —  and  behind  that  Boer  the 
larger  problem  of  a  rent  and  dissatisfied  universe, 
waging  peace  as  bitterly  as  it  waged  war.  Smuts  the 
dreamer  was  again  Smuts  the  fighter,  with  the  fight  of 
his  life  on  his  hands. 

Thus  it  came  about  that  I  found  myself  in  Capetown. 
Everybody  goes  out  to  South  Africa  from  England  on 
those  Union  Castle  boats  so  familiar  to  all  readers  of 
English  novels.  Like  the  P.  &  O.  vessels  that  Kipling 
wrote  about  in  his  Indian  stories,  they  are  among  the 
favorite  first  aids  to  the  makers  of  fiction.  Hosts  of 
heroes  in  books  —  and  some  in  real  life  —  sail  each  year 
to  their  romantic  fate  aboard  them. 

It  was  the  first  day  of  the  South  African  winter  when 
I  arrived,  but  back  in  America  spring  was  in  full 
bloom.  I  looked  out  on  the  same  view  that  had  thrilled 
the  Portuguese  adventurers  of  the  fifteenth  century 
when  they  swept  for  the  first  time  into  Table  Bay.  Be- 
hind the  harbor  rose  Table  Mountain  and  stretching 
from  it  downward  to  the  sea  was  a  land  with  verdure 


18  AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

clad  and  aglare  with  the  African  sun  that  was  to  scorch 
my  paths  for  months  to  come. 

Capetown  nestles  at  the  foot  of  a  vast  flat-topped 
mass  of  granite  unique  among  the  natural  elevations  of 
the  world.  She  is  another  melting  pot.  Here  mingle 
Kaffir  and  Boer,  Basuto  and  Britisher,  East  Indian  and 
Zulu.  The  hardy  rancher  and  fortune-hunter  from  the 
North  Country  rub  shoulders  with  the  globe-trotter.  In 
the  bustling,  streets  modern  taxicabs  vie  for  space  with 
antiquated  hansoms  bearing  names  like  "Never  Say 
Die,"  "Home  Sweet  Home,"  or  "Honeysuckle."  All 
the  horse-drawn  public  vehicles  have  names. 

You  get  a  familiar  feel  of  America  in  this  South 
African  country  and  especially  in  the  Cape  Colony, 
which  is  a  place  of  fruits,  flowers  and  sunshine  re- 
sembling California.  There  is  the  sense  of  newness 
in  the  atmosphere,  and  something  of  the  abandon  that 
you  encounter  among  the  people  of  Australia  and  cer- 
tain parts  of  Canada.  It  comes  from  life  spent  in  the 
open  and  the  spirit  of  pioneering  that  within  a  com- 
paratively short  time  has  wrested  a  huge  domain  from 
the  savage. 

What  strikes  the  observer  at  once  is  the  sharp  con- 
flict of  race,  first,  between  black  and  white,  and  then, 
between  Briton  and  Boer.  South  of  the  Zambesi 
River,  —  and  this  includes  Rhodesia  and  the  Union  of 
South  Africa,  —  the  native  outnumbers  the  white  more 
than  six  to  one  and  he  is  increasing  at  a  much  greater 
rate  than  the  European.  Hence  you  have  an  inevitable 
conflict.  Race  lies  at  the  root  of  the  South  African 
trouble  and  the  racial  reconciliation  that  Rhodes  and 
Botha  set  their  hopes  upon  remains  an  elusive  quantity. 

I  got  a  hint  of  what  Smuts  was  up  against  the  moment 
I  arrived.    I  had  cabled  him  of  my  coming  and  he  sent 


SMUTS  19 

an  orderly  to  the  steamer  with  a  note  of  welcome  and 
inviting  me  to  lunch  with  him  at  the  House  of  Parlia- 
ment the  next  day.  In  the  letter,  among  other  things 
he  said:  "You  will  find  this  a  really  interesting  country, 
full  of  curious  problems."  How  curious  they  were  I 
was  soon  to  find  out. 

I  called  for  him  at  his  modest  book-lined  office  in  a 
street  behind  the  ParHament  Buildings  and  we  walked 
together  to  the  House.  Heretofore  I  had  only  seen  him 
in  the  uniform  of  a  Lieutenant  General  in  the  British 
Army.  Now  he  wore  a  loose-fitting  lounge  suit  and  a 
slouch  hat  was  jammed  down  on  his  head.  In  the 
change  from  khaki  to  mufti  —  and  few  men  can  stand 
up  under  this  transition  without  losing  some  of  the  char- 
acter of  their  personal  appearance,  —  he  remained  a 
striking  figure.  There  is  something  wistful  in  his  face 
—  an  indescribable  look  that  projects  itself  not  only 
through  you  but  beyond.  It  is  not  exactly  preoccupa- 
tion but  a  highly  developed  concentration.  This  look 
seemed  to  be  enhanced  by  the  ordeal  through  which  he 
was  then  passing.  In  his  springy  walk  was  a  suggestion 
of  pugnacity.  His  whole  manner  was  that  of  a  man  in 
action  and  who  exults  in  it.  Roosevelt  had  the  same 
characteristic  but  he  displayed  it  with  much  more  anima- 
tion and  strenuosity. 

We  sat  down  in  the  crowded  dining  room  of  the 
House  of  Parliament  where  the  Prime  Minister  had 
invited  a  group  of  Cabinet  Ministers  and  leading  busi- 
ness men  of  Capetown.  Around  us  seethed  a  noisy 
swirl  which  reflected  the  turmoil  of  the  South  African 
political  situation.  Parliament  had  just  convened  after 
an  historic  election  in  which  the  Nationalists,  the  bitter 
antagonists  of  Botha  and  Smuts,  had  elected  a  ma- 
jority of  representatives  for  the  first  time.    Smuts  was 


20  AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

hanging  on  to  the  Premiership  by  his  teeth.  A  sharp 
division  of  vote,  likely  at  any  moment,  would  have  over- 
thrown the  Government.  It  meant  a  regime  hostile  to 
Britain  that  carried  with  it  secession  and  the  remote 
possibility  of  civil  war. 

In  that  restaurant,  as  throughout  the  whole  Union, 
Smuts  was  at  that  moment  literally  the  observed  of  all 
observers.  Far  off  in  London  the  powers-that-be  were 
praying  that  this  blonde  and  bearded  Boer  could  suc- 
cessfully man  the  imperial  breach.  Yet  he  sat  there 
smiling  and  unafraid  and  the  company  that  he  had 
assembled  discussed  a  variety  of  subjects  that  ranged 
from  the  fall  in  exchange  to  the  possibilities  of  the 
wheat  crop  in  America. 

The  luncheon  was  the  first  of  various  meetings  with 
Smuts.  Some  were  amid  the  tumult  of  debate  or  in  the 
shadow  of  the  legislative  halls,  others  out  in  the  country 
at  Groote  Schuur,  the  Prime  Minister's  residence,  where 
we  walked  amid  the  gardens  that  Cecil  Rhodes  loved, 
or  sat  in  the  rooms  where  the  Colossus  "thought  in  terras 
of  continents."    It  was  a  liberal  education. 

Before  we  can  go  into  what  Smuts  said  during  these 
interviews  it  is  important  to  know  briefly  the  whole 
approach  to  the  crowded  hour  that  made  the  fullest 
test  of  his  resource  and  statesmanship.  Clearly  to 
understand  it  you  must  first  know  something  about  the 
Boer  and  his  long  stubborn  struggle  for  independence 
which  ended,  for  a  time  at  least,  in  the  battle  and  blood 
of  the  Boer  War. 

Capetown,  the  melting  pot,  is  merely  a  miniature  of 
the  larger  boiling  cauldron  of  race  which  is  the  Union 
of  South  Africa.  In  America  we  also  have  an  astonish- 
ing mixture  of  bloods  but  with  the  exception  of  the  Bol- 
shevists and  other  radical  uplifters,  our  population  is 


SMUTS  21 

loyally  dedicated  to  the  American  flag  and  the  institu- 
tions it  represents.  With  us  Latin,  Slav,  Celt,  and 
Saxon  have  blended  the  strain  that  proved  its  mettle 
as  "Americans  All"  under  the  Stars  and  Stripes  in 
France.  We  have  given  succor  and  sanctuary  to  the 
oppressed  of  many  lands  and  these  foreign  elements, 
in  the  main,  have  not  only  been  grateful  but  have  proved 
to  be  distinct  assets  in  our  national  expansion.  We  are 
a  merged  people. 

With  South  Africa  the  situation  is  somewhat  differ- 
ent. The  roots  of  civilization  there  were  planted  by  the 
Dutch  in  the  days  of  the  Dutch  East  India  Company 
when  Holland  was  a  world  power.  The  Dutchman  is 
a  tenacious  and  stubborn  person.  Although  the  Hugue- 
nots emigrated  to  the  Cape  in  considerable  force  in  the 
seventeenth  century  and  intermarried  with  the  trans- 
planted Hollanders,  the  Dutch  strain,  and  with  it  the 
Dutch  characteristics  predominated.  They  have  shaped 
South  African  history  ever  since.  This  is  why  the  Boer 
is  still  referred  to  in  popular  parlance  as  "a  Dutchman." 

The  Dutch  have  always  been  a  proud  and  liberty* 
loving  people,  as  the  Duke  of  Alva  and  the  Spaniard^ 
learned  to  their  cost.  This  inherited  desire  for  freedom 
has  flamed  in  the  hearts  of  the  Boers.  In  the  early 
African  day  they  preferred  to  journey  on  to  the  wild 
and  unknown  places  rather  than  sacrifice  their  inde- 
pendence. What  is  known  as  "The  Great  Trek"  of 
the  thirties,  which  opened  up  the  Transvaal  and  subse- 
quently the  Orange  Free  State  and  Natal,  was  due 
entirely  to  unrest  among  the  Cape  Boers.  There  is 
something  of  the  epic  in  the  narrative  of  those  doughty, 
psalm-singing  trekkers  who,  like  the  Mormons  in  the 
American  West,  went  forth  in  their  canvas-covered 
wagons  with  a  rifle  in  one  hand  and  the  Bible  in  the 


22  AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

other.  They  fought  the  savage,  endured  untold  hard- 
ships, and  met  fate  with  a  grim  smile  on  their  lips.  It 
took  Britain  nearly  three  costly  years  to  subdue  their 
descendants,  an  untrained  army  of  farmers. 

A  revelation  of  the  Boer  character,  therefore,  is  an 
index  to  the  South  African  tangle.  His  enemies  call 
the  Boer  "a  combination  of  cunning  and  childishness.'* 
As  a  matter  of  fact  the  Boer  is  distinct  among  in- 
dividualists. "Oom  Paul"  Kruger  was  a  type.  A 
fairly  familiar  story  will  concretely  illustrate  what  lies 
within  and  behind  the  race.  On  one  occasion  his  thumb 
was  nearly  severed  in  an  accident.  With  his  pocket- 
knife  he  cut  off  the  finger,  bound  up  the  wound  with  a 
rag,  and  went  about  his  business. 

The  old  Boer  —  and  the  type  survives  —  was  a  Puri- 
tan who  loved  his  five-thousand-acre  farm  where  he 
could  neither  see  nor  hear  his  neighbors,  who  read  the 
Good  Word  three  times  a  day,  drank  prodigious  quan- 
tities of  coffee,  spoke  'HaaV  the  Dutch  dialect,  and 
reared  a  huge  family.  Botha,  for  example,  was  one 
of  thirteen  children,  and  his  father  lamented  to  his 
dying  day  that  he  had  not  done  his  full  duty  by  his 
country! 

Isolation  was  the  Boer  fetich.  This  instinct  for  aloof- 
ness, —  principally  racial,  —  animates  the  sincere  wing 
of  the  Nationalist  Party  today.  Men  like  Botha  and 
Smuts  and  their  followers  adapted  themselves  to  assimi- 
lation but  there  remained  the  "bitter-end"  element  that 
rebelled  in  arms  against  the  constituted  authority  in 
1914  and  had  to  be  put  down  with  merciless  hand.  This 
element  now  seeks  to  achieve  through  more  peaceful 
ends  what  it  sought  to  do  by  force  the  moment  Britain 
became  involved  in  the  Great  War.  The  reason  for  the 
revolt  of  1914,  in  a  paragraph,  was  Britain's  far-flung 


SMUTS  23 

call  to  arms.  The  unreconstructed  Boers  refused  to 
fight  for  the  Power  that  humbled  them  in  1902.  They 
seized  the  moment  to  make  a  try  for  what  they  called 
"emancipation." 

To  go  back  for  a  moment,  when  the  British  conquered 
the  Cape  and  thousands  of  Englishmen  streamed  out  to 
Africa  to  make  their  fortunes,  the  Boer  at  once  bristled 
with  resentment.  His  isolation  was  menaced.  He  re- 
garded the  Briton  as  an  ''Uitlander*'  —  an  outsider  — 
and  treated  him  as  an  undesirable  alien.  In  the  Trans- 
vaal and  the  Orange  Free  State  he  was  denied  the  rights 
that  are  accorded  to  law-abiding  citizens  in  other  coun- 
tries. Hence  the  Jameson  Raid,  which  was  an  ill- 
starred  protest  against  the  narrow,  copper-riveted  Boer 
rule,  and  later  the  final  and  sanguinary  show-down  in 
the  Boer  War,  which  ended  the  dream  of  Boer  in- 
dependence. 

In  1910  was  established  the  Union  of  South  Africa, 
comprising  the  Transvaal,  the  Orange  Free  State,  Natal 
and  the  Cape  Colony  which  obtained  responsible  govern- 
ment and  which  is  to  all  intents  and  purposes  a  dominion 
as  free  as  Australia  or  Canada.  England  sends  out 
a  Governor-General,  usually  a  high-placed  and  titled 
person  but  he  is  a  be-medalled  figure-head,  —  an  orna- 
mental feature  of  the  landscape.  His  principal  labours 
are  to  open  fairs,  attend  funerals,  preside  at  harmless 
gatherings,  and  bestow  decorations  upon  worthy  per- 
sons. First  Botha,  and  later  Smuts,  have  been  the  real 
rulers  of  the  country. 

The  Union  Constitution  decreed  that  bi-lingualism 
must  prevail.  As  a  result  every  public  notice,  docu- 
ment, and  time-table  is  printed  in  both  English  and 
Dutch.  The  tie  of  language  is  a  strong  one  and  this 
eternal  and  unuttered  presence  of  the  "taal"  has  been 


24  AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

an  asset  for  the  Nationalists  to  exploit.  It  is  a  link  with 
the  days  of  independence. 

Following  the  Boer  War  came  a  sharp  cleavage 
among  the  Boers.  That  great  farm-bred  soldier  and 
statesman,  Louis  Botha,  accepted  the  verdict  and  be- 
came the  leader  of  what  might  be  called  a  reconciled 
reconstruction.  Firm  in  the  belief  that  the  future  of 
South  Africa  was  greater  than  the  smaller  and  selfish 
issue  of  racial  pride  and  prejudice,  he  rallied  his  open- 
minded  and  far-seeing  countrymen  around  him.  Out 
of  this  group  developed  the  South  African  Party  which 
remains  the  party  of  the  Dutch  loyal  to  British  rule. 
To  quote  the  program  of  principles,  "Its  political  object 
is  the  development  of  a  South  African  spirit  of  national 
imity  and  self-reliance  through  the  attainment  of  the 
lasting  union  of  the  various  sections  of  the  people." 

Botha  was  made  Premier  of  the  Transvaal  as  soon 
as  the  Colony  was  granted  self-government  and  with  the 
accomplishment  of  Union  was  named  Prime  Minister 
of  the  Federation.  The  first  man  that  he  called  to  the 
standard  of  the  new  order  to  become  his  Colonial 
Minister,  or  more  technically.  Minister  of  the  Interior, 
was  Smuts,  who  had  left  his  law  office  in  Johannesburg 
to  fight  the  English  in  1900  and  who  displayed  the  same 
consummate  strategy  in  the  field  that  he  has  since  shown 
in  Cabinet  meeting  and  Legislative  forum.  With  peace 
he  returned  to  law  but  not  for  long.  Now  began  his 
political  career  —  he  has  held  public  office  continuously 
ever  since  —  that  is  a  vital  part  of  the  modem  history  of 
South  Africa. 

In  the  years  immediately  following  Union  the  genius 
of  Botha  had  full  play.  He  wrought  a  miracle  of 
evolution.  Under  his  influence  the  land  which  still  bore 
the  scars  of  war  was  turned  to  plenty.    He  was  a  farmer 


SMUTS  25 

and  he  bent  his  energy  and  leadership  to  the  rebuilding 
of  the  shattered  commonwealths.  Their  hope  lay  in  the 
soil.  His  right  arm  was  Smuts,  who  became  succes- 
sively Minister  of  Finance  and  Minister  of  Public 
Defense. 

The  belief  that  reconciliation  had  dawned  was  rudely 
disturbed  when  the  Great  War  crashed  into  civilization. 
The  extreme  Nationalists  rebelled  and  it  was  Botha, 
aided  by  Smuts,  who  crushed  them.  Beyers,  the  ring- 
leader, was  drowned  while  trying  to  escape  across  the 
Vaal  River,  DeWet  was  defeated  in  the  field,  De  la 
Rey  was  accidentally  shot,  and  Maritz  became  a  fugi- 
tive. Botha  then  conquered  the  Germans  in  German 
South- West  Africa  and  Smuts  subsequently  took  over 
the  command  of  the  Allied  Forces  in  German  East 
Africa.  When  Botha  died  in  1919  Smuts  not  only 
assumed  the  Premiership  of  the  Union  but  he  also  in- 
herited the  bitter  enmity  that  General  J.  B.  M.  Hertzog 
bore  towards  his  lamented  Chief. 

Now  we  come  to  the  crux  of  the  whole  business,  past 
and  present.  Who  is  Hertzog  and  what  does  he  stand 
for? 

If  you  look  at  your  history  of  the  Boer  War  you 
will  see  that  one  of  the  first  Dutch  Generals  to  take  the 
field  and  one  of  the  last  to  leave  it  was  Hertzog,  an 
Orange  Free  State  lawyer  who  had  won  distinction  on 
the  Bench.  He  helped  to  frame  the  Union  Constitution 
and  on  the  day  he  signed  it,  declared  that  it  was  a  distinct 
epoch  in  his  life.  A  Boer  of  the  Boers,  he  seemed  to 
catch  for  the  moment,  the  contagion  that  radiated  from 
Botha  and  spelled  a  Greater  South  Africa. 

Botha  made  him  Minister  of  Justice  and  all  was  well. 
But  deep  down  in  his  heart  Hertzog  remained  unre- 
pentant.   When  the  question  of  South  Africa's  contri- 


26  AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

bution  to  the  Imperial  Navy  came  up  in  1912  he  fought 
it  tooth  and  nail.  In  fiery  utterances  attacking  the 
Government  he  denounced  Botha  as  a  jingoist  and  an 
imperialist.  Just  about  this  time  he  made  the  famous 
speech  in  which  he  stated  his  ideal  of  South  Africa.  He 
declared  that  Briton  and  Boer  were  "two  separate 
streams  —  two  nationalities  each  flowing  in  a  separate 
channel.  The  "two  streams"  slogan  is  now  the  Nation- 
alist battlecry. 

Such  procedure  on  the  part  of  Hertzog  demanded 
prompt  action  on  the  part  of  Botha,  who  called  upon  his 
colleague  either  to  suppress  his  particular  brand  of 
anathema  or  resign.  Hertzog  not  only  built  a  bigger 
bonfire  of  denunciation  but  refused  to  resign. 

Botha  thereupon  devised  a  unique  method  of  ridding 
himself  of  his  uncongenial  Minister.  He  resigned,  the 
Government  fell,  and  the  Cabinet  dissolved  automati- 
cally. Hertzog  was  left  out  in  the  cold.  The  Governor- 
General  immediately  re-appointed  Botha  Prime  Min- 
ister and  he  reorganized  his  Cabinet  without  the  un- 
desirable Hertzog. 

Hertzog  became  the  Stormy  Petrel  of  South  Africa, 
vowing  vengeance  against  Botha  and  Britain.  He 
galvanized  the  Nationalist  Party,  which  up  to  this  time 
had  been  merely  a  party  of  opposition,  into  what  was 
rapidly  becoming  a  flaming  secession  movement.  The 
South  African  Party  developed  into  the  only  really 
national  party,  while  its  opponent,  although  bearing  the 
name  of  National,  was  solely  and  entirely  racial. 

The  first  real  test  of  strength  was  in  the  election  of 
1915.  The  campaign  was  bitter  and  belligerent.  The 
venom  of  the  Nationalist  Party  was  concentrated  on 
Smuts.  Many  of  his  meetings  became  bloody  riots.  He 
was  the  target  for  rotten  fruit  and  on  one  occasion  an 


SMUTS  27 

attempt  was  made  on  his  life.  The  combination  of  the 
Botha  personahty  and  the  Smuts  courage  and  reason 
won  out  and  the  South  African  Party  remained  in 
power. 

Undaunted,  Hertzog  carried  on  the  fight.  He  soon 
had  the  supreme  advantage  of  having  the  field  to  him- 
self because  Botha  was  off  fighting  the  Germans  and 
Smuts  had  gone  to  England  to  help  mould  the  Allied 
fortunes.  The  Nationalist  leader  made  hay  while  the 
red  sun  of  war  shone.  Every  South  African  who  died 
on  the  battlefield  was  for  him  just  another  argument 
for  separation  from  England. 

When  Ireland  declared  herself  a  "republic"  Hertzog 
took  the  cue  and  counted  his  cause  in  with  that  of  the 
"small  nations"  that  needed  self-determination.  "Afrika 
for  the  Afrikans,"  the  old  motto  of  the  Afrikander 
Bond,  was  unfurled  from  the  masthead  and  the  sedition 
spread.  It  not  only  recruited  the  Boers  who  had  an 
ancient  grievance  against  Great  Britain,  but  many 
others  who  secretly  resented  the  Botha  and  Smuts  inti- 
macy with  "the  conquerors."  Some  were  sons  and 
grandsons  of  the  old  ''VortrekJcers"  who  not  only  de- 
lighted to  speak  the  ''taal"  exclusively  but  who  had 
never  surrendered  the  ideal  of  independence. 

While  the  Dutch  movement  in  South  Africa  strongly 
resembles  the  Irish  rebellion  there  are  also  some  marked 
differences.  In  South  Africa  there  is  no  religious 
barrier  and  as  a  result  there  has  been  much  intermarriage 
between  Briton  and  Boer.  The  English  in  South  Africa 
bear  the  same  relation  to  the  Nationalist  movement 
there  that  the  Ulsterites  bear  to  the  Sinn  Feiners  in 
Ireland.  Instead  of  being  segregated  as  are  the  fol- 
lowers of  Sir  Edward  Carson,  they  are  scattered 
throughout  the  country. 


28  AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

At  the  General  Election  held  early  in  1920, — 
general  elections  are  held  every  five  years, — the  results 
were  surprising.  The  Nationalists  returned  a  majority 
of  four  over  the  South  African  Party  in  Parliament. 
It  left  Smuts  to  carry  on  his  Government  with  a 
minority.  To  add  to  his  troubles,  the  Labour  Party,  — 
always  an  uncertain  proposition,  —  increased  its  repre- 
sentation from  a  mere  handful  to  twenty-one,  while  the 
Unionists,  who  comprise  the  straight-out  English- 
speaking  Party,  whose  stronghold  is  Natal,  suffered 
severe  losses.  Smuts  could  not  very  well  count  the  latter 
among  his  open  allies  because  it  would  have  alienated 
the  hard-shell  Boers  in  the  South  African  Party. 

This  was  the  situation  that  I  found  on  my  arrival  in 
Capetown.  On  one  hand  was  Smuts,  still  Prime  Min- 
ister, taxing  his  every  resource. as  parliamentarian  and 
pacificator  to  maintain  the  Union  and  prevent  a  revolt 
from  Britain  —  all  in  the  face  of  a  bitter  and  hostile 
majority.  On  the  other  hand  was  Hertzog,  bent  on 
secession  and  with  a  solid  array  of  discontents  behind 
him.  The  two  former  comrades  of  the  firing  line,  as 
the  heads  of  their  respective  groups,  were  locked  in  a 
momentous  pohtical  life-and-death  struggle  the  out- 
come of  which  may  prove  to  be  the  precedent  for 
Ireland,  Egypt,  and  India. 


PS 

o 
o 

o 


II 

YET  SMUTS  continued  as  Premier  which 
means  that  he  brought  the  Hfe  of  Parhament 
to  a  close  without  a  sharp  division.  More- 
over, he  manoeuvered  his  forces  into  a  position  that 
saved  the  day  for  Union  and  himself.    How  did  he  do  it? 

I  can  demonstrate  one  way  and  with  a  rather  per- 
sonal incident.  During  the  week  I  spent  in  Capetown 
Smuts  was  an  absorbed  person  as  you  may  imagine. 
The  House  was  in  session  day  and  night  and  there  were 
endless  demands  on  him.  The  best  opportunities  that 
we  had  for  talk  were  at  meal-time.  One  evening  I 
dined  with  him  in  the  House  restaurant.  When  we 
sat  down  we  thought  that  we  had  the  place  to  ourselves. 
Suddenly  Smuts  cast  his  eye  over  the  long  room  and  saw 
a  solitary  man  just  commencing  his  dinner  in  the  oppo- 
site corner.    Turning  to  me  he  said : 

"Do  you  know  Cresswell?" 

"I  was  introduced  to  him  yesterday,"  I  replied. 

"Would  you  mind  if  I  asked  him  to  dine  with  us?" 

When  I  assured  him  that  I  would  be  delighted,  the 
Prime  Minister  got  up,  walked  over  to  Cresswell  and 
asked  him  to  join  us,  which  he  did. 

The  significant  part  of  this  apparently  simple  per- 
formance, which  had  its  important  outcome,  was  this. 
Colonel  F.  H.  P.  Cresswell  is  the  leader  of  the  Labour 
Party  in  South  Africa.  By  profession  a  mining  en- 
gineer, he  led  the  forces  of  revolt  in  the  historic  industrial 
upheaval  in  the  Rand  in  what  Smuts  denounced  as  a 


30  AN    AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

"Syndicalist  Conspiracy."  Riot,  bloodshed,  and  con- 
fusion reigned  for  a  considerable  period  at  Johannes- 
burg and  large  bodies  of  troops  had  to  be  called  out  to 
restore  order.  At  the  very  moment  that  we  sat  down  to 
dine  that  night  no  one  knew  just  what  Cresswell  and 
the  Labourites  with  their  new-won  power  would  do. 
Smuts,  as  Minister  of  Finance,  had  deported  some  of 
Cresswell's  men  and  Cresswell  himself  narrowly  es- 
caped drastic  punishment. 

When  Smuts  brought  Cresswell  over  he  said  jokingly 
to  me: 

"Cresswell  is  a  good  fellow  but  I  came  near  send- 
ing him  to  jail  once." 

Cresswell  beamed  and  the  three  of  us  amiably  dis- 
cussed various  topics  until  the  gong  sounded  for  the 
assembling  of  the  House. 

What  was  the  result?  Before  I  left  Capetown  and 
when  the  first  of  the  few  occasions  which  tested  the  real 
voting  strength  of  Parliament  arose,  Cresswell  and 
some  of  his  adherents  voted  with  Smuts.  I  tell  this 
little  story  to  show  that  the  man  who  today  holds  the 
destiny  of  South  Africa  in  his  hands  is  as  skillful  a 
diplomat  as  he  is  soldier  and  statesman. 

It  was  at  one  of  these  quiet  dinners  with  Smuts  at 
the  House  that  he  first  spoke  about  Nationalism.  He 
said:  "The  war  gave  Nationalism  its  death  blow.  But 
as  a  matter  of  fact  Nationalism  committed  suicide  in 
the  war." 

"But  what  is  Nationalism?"  I  asked  him. 

"A  water-tight  nation  in  a  water-tight  compartment," 
he  replied.  "It  is  a  process  of  regimentation  like  the 
old  Germany  that  will  soon  merge  into  a  new  Inter- 
nationalism. What  seems  to  be  at  this  moment  an  orgy 
of  Nationalism  in  South  Africa  or  elsewhere  is  merely 


SMUTS  31 

its  death  gasp.  The  New  World  will  be  a  world  of 
individuaUsm  dominated  by  Britain  and  America. 

"What  about  the  future?"  I  asked  him.  His  answer 
was: 

"The  safety  of  the  future  depends  upon  Federation, 
upon  a  League  of  Nations  that  will  develop  along 
economic  and  not  purely  sentimental  lines.  The  New 
Internationalism  will  not  stop  war  but  it  can  regulate 
exchange,  and  through  this  regulation  can  help  to  pre- 
vent war. 

"I  believe  in  an  international  currency  which  will  be 
a  sort  of  legal  tender  among  all  the  nations.  Why 
should  the  currency  of  the  country  depreciate  or  rise 
with  the  fortunes  of  war  or  with  its  industrial  or  other 
complications?  Misfortune  should  not  be  penalized 
fiscally." 

I  brought  up  the  question  of  the  lack  of  accord  which 
then  existed  between  Britain  and  America  and  suggested 
that  perhaps  the  fall  in  exchange  had  something  to  do 
with  it,  whereupon  he  said:  "Yes,  I  think  it  has.  It 
merely  illustrates  the  point  that  I  have  just  made  about 
an  international  currency." 

We  came  back  to  the  subject  of  individuahsm,  which 
led  Smuts  to  say: 

"The  Great  War  was  a  striking  illustration  of  the 
difference  between  individualism  and  nationalism. 
Hindenberg  commanded  the  only  army  in  the  war.  It 
was  a  product  of  nationalism.  The  individuahsm  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  is  such  that  it  becomes  a  mob  but  it 
is  an  intelligent  mob.  Haig  and  Pershing  commanded 
such  mobs." 

I  tried  to  probe  Smuts  about  Russia.  He  was  in 
London  when  I  returned  from  Petrograd  in  1917  and  I 
recall  that  he  displayed  the  keenest  interest  in  what 


83  AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

I  told  him  about  Kerensky  and  the  new  order  that  I  had 
seen  in  the  making.  I  heard  him  speak  at  a  Russian 
Fair  in  London.  The  whole  burden  of  his  utterance 
was  the  hope  that  the  Slav  would  achieve  discipline  and 
organization.  At  that  time  Russia  redeemed  from  au- 
tocracy looked  to  be  a  bulwark  of  Allied  victory.  The 
night  we  talked  about  Russia  at  Capetown  she  had 
become  the  prey  of  red  terror  and  the  plaything  of 
organized  assassination. 

Smuts  looked  rather  wistful  when  he  said: 

"You  cannot  defeat  Russia.  Napoleon  learned  this 
to  his  cost  and  so  will  the  rest  of  the  world.  I  do  not 
know  whether  Bolshevism  is  advancing  or  subsiding. 
There  comes  a  time  when  the  fiercest  fires  die  down. 
But  the  best  way  to  revive  or  rally  all  Russsia  to  the 
Soviet  Government  is  to  invade  the  country  and  to 
annex  large  slices  of  it." 

These  utterances  were  made  during  those  more  or 
less  hasty  meals  at  the  House  of  Parliament  when  the 
Premier's  mind  was  really  in  the  Legislative  Hall  near- 
by where  he  was  fighting  for  his  administrative  life. 
It  was  far  different  out  at  Groote  Schuur,  the  home  of 
the  Prime  Minister,  located  in  Rondebosch,  a  suburb 
about  nine  miles  from  Capetown.  In  the  open  country 
that  he  loves,  and  in  an  environment  that  breathed  the 
romance  and  performance  of  England's  greatest  empire- 
builder,  I  caught  something  of  the  man's  kindling  vision 
and  realized  his  ripe  grasp  of  international  events. 

Groote  Schuur  is  one  of  the  best-known  estates  in 
the  world.  Cecil  Rhodes  in  his  will  left  it  to  the  Union 
as  the  permanent  residence  of  the  Prime  Minister.  Ever 
since  I  read  the  various  lives  of  Rhodes  I  had  had  an 
impatient  desire  to  see  this  shrine  of  achievement.  Here 
Rhodes  came  to  live  upon  bis  accession  to  the  Premier- 


SMUTS  88 

ship  of  the  Cape  Colony ;  here  he  fashioned  the  British 
South  Africa  Company  which  did  for  Rhodesia  what 
the  East  India  Company  did  for  India;  here  came 
prince  and  potentate  to  pay  him  honom- ;  here  he  dreamed 
his  dreams  of  conquest  looking  out  at  mountain  and 
sea;  here  lived  Jameson  and  Kipling;  here  his  remains 
lay  in  state  when  at  forty-nine  the  fires  of  his  restless 
ambition  had  ceased. 

Groote  Schuur,  which  in  Dutch  means  "Great 
Granary,"  was  originally  built  as  a  residence  and  store- 
house for  one  of  the  early  Dutch  Governors  of  the  Cape. 
It  is  a  beautiful  example  of  the  Dutch  architecture  that 
you  will  find  throughout  the  Colony  and  which  is  not 
surpassed  in  grace  or  comfort  anywhere.  When  Rhodes 
acquired  it  in  the  eighties  the  grounds  were  compara- 
tively limited.  As  his  power  and  fortune  increased  he 
bought  up  all  the  surrounding  country  until  today  you 
can  ride  for  nine  miles  across  the  estate.  You  find 
no  neat  lawns  and  dainty  flower-beds.  On  the  place, 
as  in  the  house  itself,  you  get  the  sense  of  bigness  and 
simplicity  which  were  the  keynotes  of  the  Rhodes 
character. 

One  reason  why  Rhodes  acquired  Groote  Schuur  was 
that  behind  it  rose  the  great  bulk  of  Table  Mountain. 
He  loved  it  for  its  vastness  and  its  solitude.  On  the 
back  stoep,  which  is  the  Dutch  word  for  porch,  he  sat 
for  hours  gazing  at  this  mountain  which  like  the  man 
himself  was  invested  with  a  spirit  of  immensity. 

It  was  a  memorable  experience  to  be  at  Groote  Schuur 
with  Smuts,  who  has  lived  to  see  the  realization  of  the 
hope  of  Union  which  thrilled  always  in  the  heart  of 
Cecil  Rhodes.  I  remember  that  on  the  first  night  I 
went  out  the  Prime  Minister  took  me  through  the  house 
himself.     It  has  been  contended  by  Smuts'  enemies 


34  AN    AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

that  he  was  a  "creature  of  Rhodes."  I  discovered  that 
Smuts,  with  the  exception  of  having  made  a  speech  of 
welcome  when  Rhodes  visited  the  school  that  he  attended 
as  a  boy,  had  never  even  met  the  Englishman  who  left 
his  impress  upon  a  whole  land. 

Groote  Schuur  has  been  described  so  much  that  it  is 
not  necessary  for  me  to  dwell  upon  its  charm  and  at- 
mosphere here.  To  see  it  is  to  get  a  fresh  and  intimate 
realization  of  the  personality  which  made  the  establish- 
ment an  unofficial  Chancellery  of  the  British  Empire. 

Two  details,  however,  have  poignant  and  dramatic 
interest.  In  the  simple,  massive,  bed-room  with  its 
huge  bay  window  opening  on  Table  Mountain  and  a 
stretch  of  lovely  coimtryside,  hangs  the  small  map  of 
Africa  that  Rhodes  marked  with  crimson  ink  and  about 
which  he  made  the  famous  utterance,  "It  must  be  all 
red."  Hanging  on  the  wall  in  the  billiard  room  is  the 
flag  with  Crescent  and  Cape  device  that  he  had  made  to 
be  carried  by  the  first  locomotive  to  travel  from  Cairo 
to  the  Cape.  That  flag  has  never  been  unfurled  to  the 
breeze  but  the  vision  that  beheld  it  waving  in  the  heart 
of  the  jungle  is  soon  to  become  an  accomplished  fact. 

It  was  on  a  night  at  Groote  Schuur,  as  I  walked  with 
Smuts  through  the  acres  of  hydrangeas  and  bougain- 
villea  (Rhodes'  favorite  flowers) ,  with  a  new  moon  peep- 
ing overhead  that  I  got  the  real  mood  of  the  man.  Point- 
ing to  the  faint  silvery  crescent  in  the  sky  I  said:  "Gen- 
eral, there's  a  new  moon  over  us  and  I'm  sure  it  means 
good  luck  for  you." 

"No,"  he  replied,  "it's  the  man  that  makes  the  luck." 

He  had  had  a  trying  day  in  the  House  and  was  silent 
in  the  motor  car  that  brought  us  out.  The  moment  we 
reached  the  country  and  he  sniffed  the  scent  of  the  gar- 
dens the  anxiety  and  preoccupation  fell  away.    He  al- 


SMUTS  35 

most  became  boyish.  But  when  he  began  to  discuss 
great  problems  the  hghtness  vanished  and  he  became 
the  serious  thinker. 

We  harked  back  to  the  days  when  I  had  first  seen 
him  in  England.  I  asked  him  to  tell  me  what  he  thought 
of  the  aftermath  of  the  stupendous  struggle.    He  said: 

"The  war  was  just  a  phase  of  world  convulsion.  It 
made  the  first  rent  in  the  universal  structure.  For  years 
the  trend  of  civilization  was  toward  a  super-Nationalism. 
It  is  easy  to  trace  the  stages.  The  Holy  Roman  Empire 
was  a  phase  of  Nationalism.  That  was  Catholic.  Then 
came  the  development  of  Nationalism,  beginning  with 
Napoleon.  That  was  Protestant.  Now  began  the  build- 
ing of  water-tight  compartments,  otherwise  known  as 
nations.  Germany  represented  the  most  complete  de- 
velopment. 

"But  that  era  of  'my  country,'  'my  power,'  —  it  is 
all  a  form  of  national  ego,  —  is  gone.  The  four  great 
empires,  —  Turkey,  Germany,  Russia  and  Austria,  — 
have  crumbled.  The  war  jolted  them  from  their  high 
estate.  It  started  the  universal  cataclysm.  Centuries 
in  the  future  some  perspective  can  be  had  and  the  results 
appraised. 

"Meanwhile,  we  can  see  the  beginning.  The  world 
is  one.  Humanity  is  one  and  must  be  one.  The  war, 
at  terrible  cost,  brought  the  peoples  together.  The 
League  of  Nations  is  a  faint  and  far-away  evidence 
of  this  solidarity.  It  merely  points  the  way  but  it  is 
something.  It  is  not  academic  formulas  that  will  unite 
the  peoples  of  the  world  but  intelligence." 

Smuts  now  turned  his  thought  to  a  subject  not  with- 
out interest  for  America,  for  he  said: 

"The  world  has  been  brought  together  by  the  press, 
by  wireless,  indeed  by  all  communication  which  represents 


36  AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

the  last  word  in  scientific  development.  Yet  political 
institutions  cling  to  old  and  archaic  traditions.  Take 
the  Presidency  of  the  United  States.  A  man  waits  for 
four  months  before  he  is  inaugurated.  The  incumbent 
may  work  untold  mischief  in  the  meantime.  It  is  all  due 
to  the  fact  that  in  the  days  when  the  American  Consti- 
tution was  framed  the  stagecoach  and  the  horse  were 
the  only  means  of  conveyance.  The  world  now  travels 
by  aeroplane  and  express  train,  yet  the  antiquated 
habits  continue. 

"So  with  political  parties  and  peoples,  the  British 
Empire  included.  They  need  to  be  brought  abreast 
of  the  times.  The  old  pre-war  British  Empire,  for 
example,  is  gone  in  the  sense  of  colonies  or  subordinate 
nations  clustering  around  one  master  nation.  The 
British  Empire  itself  is  developing  into  a  real  League 
of  Nations,  —  a  group  of  partner  peoples." 

"What  of  America  and  the  future?"  I  asked  him. 

"America  is  the  leaven  of  the  future,"  answered 
Smuts.  "She  is  the  life-blood  of  the  League  of  Nations. 
Without  her  the  League  is  stifled.  America  will  give 
the  League  the  peace  temper.  You  Americans  are  a 
pacific  people,  slow  to  war  but  terrible  and  irresistible 
when  you  once  get  at  it.  The  American  is  an  individ- 
ualist and  in  that  new  and  inevitable  internationalism  the 
individual  will  stand  out,  the  American  pre-eminently." 

Throughout  this  particular  experience  at  Groote 
Schuur  I  could  not  help  marvelling  on  the  contrast  that 
the  man  and  the  moment  presented.  We  walked 
through  a  place  of  surpassing  beauty.  Ahead  brooded 
the  black  mystery  of  the  moimtains  and  all  around  was 
a  fragrant  stillness  broken  only  by  the  quick,  almost 
passionate  speech  of  this  seer  and  thinker,  animate  with 
an  inspiring  ideal  of  public  service,  whose  mind  leaped 


SMUTS  37 

from  the  high  places  of  poetry  and  philosophy  on  to 
the  hiving  battlefield  of  world  event.  It  seemed  almost 
impossible  that  nine  miles  away  at  Capetown  raged  the 
storm  that  almost  within  the  hour  would  again  claim 
him  as  its  central  figure. 

The  Smuts  statements  that  I  have  quoted  were  made 
long  before  the  Presidential  election  in  America.  I  do 
not  know  just  what  Smuts  thinks  of  the  landshde  that 
overwhelmed  the  Wilson  administration  and  with  it  that 
well-known  Article  X,  but  I  do  know  that  he  genuinely 
hopes  that  the  United  States  somehow  will  have  a  share 
in  the  new  international  stewardship  of  the  world.  He 
would  welcome  any  order  that  would  enable  us  to  play 
our  part. 

No  one  can  have  contact  with  Smuts  without  feeling 
at  once  his  intense  admiration  for  America.  One  of  his 
ambitions  is  to  come  to  the  United  States.  It  is  char- 
acteristic of  him  that  he  has  no  desire  to  see  skyscrapers 
and  subways.  His  primary  interest  is  in  the  great  farms 
of  the  West.  "Your  people,"  he  once  said  to  me,  "have 
made  farming  a  science  and  I  wish  that  South  Africa 
could  emulate  them.  We  have  farms  in  vast  area  but 
we  have  not  yet  attained  an  adequate  development.'* 

I  was  amazed  at  his  knowledge  of  American  litera- 
ture. He  knows  Hamilton  backwards,  has  read  dili- 
gently about  the  life  and  times  of  Washington,  and  is 
familiar  with  Irving,  Poe,  Hawthorne  and  Emerson. 
One  reason  why  he  admires  the  first  American  Presi- 
dent is  because  he  was  a  farmer.  Smuts  knows  as  much 
about  rotation  of  crops  and  successful  chicken  raising 
as  he  does  about  law  and  politics.    He  said: 

"I  am  an  eighty  per  cent  farmer  and  a  Boer,  and  most 
people  think  a  Boer  is  a  barbarian." 

Despite  his  scholarship  he  remains  what  he  delights 


88  AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

to  call  himself,  "a  Boer."  He  still  likes  the  simple  Boer 
things,  as  this  story  will  show.  During  the  war,  while 
he  was  a  member  of  the  British  War  Cabinet  and  when 
Lloyd  George  leaned  on  him  so  heavily  for  a  multitude 
of  services,  a  young  South  African  Major,  fresh  from 
the  Transvaal,  brought  him  a  box  of  home  delicacies. 
The  principal  feature  of  this  package  was  a  piece  of 
what  the  Boers  call  "biltong,"  which  is  dried  venison. 
The  Major  gave  the  package  to  an  imposing  servant  in 
livery  at  the  Savoy  Hotel,  where  the  General  lived,  to 
be  delivered  to  him.  Smuts  was  just  going  out  and  en- 
countered the  man  carrying  it  in.  When  he  learned 
that  it  was  from  home,  he  grabbed  the  box,  saying: 
"I'll  take  it  up  myself."  Before  he  reached  his  apart- 
ment he  was  chewing  away  vigorously  on  a  mouthful 
of  "biltong"  and  having  the  time  of  his  life. 

The  contrast  between  Smuts  and  his  predecessor 
Botha  is  striking.  These  two  men,  with  the  possible 
exception  of  Kruger,  stand  out  in  the  annals  of  the 
Boer.  Kruger  was  the  dour,  stolid,  canny,  provincial 
trader.  The  only  time  that  his  interest  ever  left  the 
confines  of  the  Transvaal  was  when  he  sought  an  alliance 
with  William  Hohenzollern,  and  that  person,  I  might 
add,  failed  him  at  the  critical  moment. 

Botha  was  the  George  Washington  of  South  Africa. 
—  the  farmer  who  became  Premier.  He  was  big  of 
body  and  of  soul,  —  big  enough  to  know  when  he  was 
beaten  and  to  rebuild  out  of  the  ruins.  Even  the  Nation- 
alists trusted  him  and  they  do  not  trust  Smuts.  It  is 
the  old  story  of  the  prophet  in  his  own  country.  There 
are  many  people  in  South  Africa  today  who  believe  that 
if  Botha  were  alive  there  would  be  no  secession  move- 
ment. 

The  Boers  who  oppose  him  politically  call  Smuts 


SMUTS  39 

"Slim  Jannie."  The  Dutch  word  "slim"  means  tricky 
and  evasive.  Not  so  very  long  ago  Smuts  was  in 
a  conference  with  some  of  his  countrymen  who  were  not 
altogether  friendly  to  him.  He  had  just  remarked  on 
the  long  drought  that  was  prevailing.  One  of  the  men 
present  went  to  the  window  and  looked  out.  When  asked 
the  reason  for  this  action  he  replied : 

"Smuts  says  that  there's  a  drought.  I  looked  out 
to  see  if  it  was  raining." 

When  you  come  to  Smuts  in  this  analogy  you  behold 
the  Alexander  Hamilton  of  his  nation,  the  brilliant 
student,  soldier,  and  advocate.  Of  all  his  Boer  con- 
temporaries he  is  the  most  cosmopolitan.  Nor  is  this 
due  entirely  to  the  fact  that  he  went  to  Cambridge 
where  he  left  a  record  for  scholarship,  and  speaks  Eng- 
lish with  a  decided  accent.  It  is  because  he  has  what 
might  be  called  world  sense.  His  career,  and  more  es- 
pecially his  part  at  the  Peace  Conference  and  since,  is 
a  dramatization  of  it. 

To  the  student  of  human  interest  Smuts  is  a  fertile 
subject.  His  life  has  been  a  cinema  romance  shot 
through  with  sharp  contrasts.  Here  is  one  of  them. 
When  leaders  of  the  shattered  Boer  forces  gathered  in 
Vereeniging  to  discuss  the  Peace  Terms  with  Kitchener 
in  1902,  Smuts,  who  commanded  a  flying  guerilla 
column,  was  besieging  the  little  mining  town  of  O'okiep. 
He  received  a  summons  from  Botha  to  attend.  It  was 
accompanied  by  a  safe-conduct  pass  signed  "D.  Haig, 
Colonel."  Later  Haig  and  Smuts  stood  shoulder  to 
shoulder  in  a  common  cause  and  helped  to  save  civi- 
lization. 

Smuts  is  more  many-sided  than  any  other  contem- 
porary Prime  Minister  and  for  that  matter,  those  that 
have  gone  into  retirement,  that  is,  men  like  Asquith  in 


40  AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

England  and  Clemenceau  in  France.  Among  world 
statesmen  the  only  mind  comparable  to  his  is  that  of 
Woodrow  Wilson.  They  have  in  common  a  high  in- 
tellectuality. But  Wilson  in  his  prime  lacked  the  hard 
sense  and  the  accurate  knowledge  of  men  and  practical 
affairs  which  are  among  the  chief  Smuts  assets. 

Speaking  of  Premiers  brings  me  to  the  inevitable 
comparison  betwen  Smuts  and  Lloyd  George.  I  have 
seen  them  both  in  varying  circumstances,  both  in  public 
and  in  private  and  can  attempt  some  appraisal. 

Each  has  been,  and  remains,  a  pillar  of  Empire. 
Each  has  emulated  the  Admirable  Crichton  in  the 
variety  and  multiplicity  of  public  posts.  Lloyd  George 
has  held  five  Cabinet  posts  in  England  and  Smuts  has 
duplicated  the  record  in  South  Africa.  Each  man  is  an 
inspired  orator  who  owes  much  of  his  advancement  to 
eloquent  tongue.  Their  platform  manner  is  totally 
different.  Lloyd  George  is  fascinatingly  magnetic  in 
and  out  of  the  spotlight  while  Smuts  is  more  coldly  logi- 
cal. When  you  hear  Lloyd  George  you  are  stirred  and 
even  exalted  by  his  golden  imagery.  The  sound  of  his 
voice  falls  on  the  ear  like  music.  You  admire  the  daring 
of  his  utterance  but  you  do  not  always  remember  every- 
thing he  says. 

With  Smuts  you  listen  and  you  remember.  He  has  no 
tricks  of  the  spellbinder's  trade.  He  is  forceful,  con- 
vincing, persuasive,  and  what  is  more  important,  has 
the  quality  of  permanency.  Long  after  you  have  left 
his  presence  the  words  remain  in  your  memory.  If  I 
had  a  case  in  court  I  would  like  to  have  Smuts  try  it. 
His  specialty  is  pleading. 

Lloyd  George  seldom  reads  a  book.  The  only  vol- 
umes I  ever  heard  him  say  that  he  had  read  were  Mr. 
Dooley  and  a  collection  of  the  Speeches  of  Abraham 


SMUTS  41 

Lincoln.  He  has  books  read  for  him  and  with  a 
Roosevelt  faculty  for  assimilation,  gives  you  the  impres- 
sion that  he  has  spent  his  life  in  a  library. 

Smuts  is  one  of  the  best-read  men  I  have  met.  He 
seems  to  know  something  about  everything.  He  ranges 
from  Joseph  Conrad  to  Kant,  from  Booker  Washing- 
ton to  Tolstoi.  History,  fiction,  travel,  biography,  have 
all  come  within  his  ken.  I  told  him  I  proposed  to  go 
from  Capetown  to  the  Congo  and  possibly  to  Angola. 
His  face  lighted  up.  "Ah,  yes,"  he  said,  "I  have  read 
all  about  those  countries.  I  can  see  them  before  me  in 
my  mind's  eye." 

One  night  at  dinner  at  Groote  Schuur  we  had  sweet 
potatoes.  He  asked  me  if  they  were  common  in 
America.  I  replied  that  down  in  Kentucky  where  I  was 
born  one  of  the  favorite  negro  dishes  was  "  'possum  and 
sweet  potatoes."    He  took  me  up  at  once  saying: 

"Oh,  yes,  I  have  read  about  '  'possum  pie'  in  Joel 
Chandler  Harris'  books."  Then  he  proceeded  to  tell 
me  what  a  great  institution  "Br'er  Rabbit"  was. 

We  touched  on  German  poetry  and  I  quoted  two  lines 
that  I  considered  beautiful.  When  I  remarked  that 
I  thought  Heine  was  the  author  he  corrected  me  by 
proving  that  they  were  written  by  Schiller. 

Lloyd  George  could  never  carry  on  a  conversation 
like  this  for  the  simple  reason  that  he  lacks  familiarity 
with  literature.  He  feels  perhaps  like  the  late  Charles 
Frohman  who,  on  being  asked  if  he  read  the  dramatic 
papers  said:  "Why  should  I  read  about  the  theatre.  I 
make  dramatic  history." 

I  asked  Smuts  what  he  was  reading  at  the  moment. 
He  looked  at  me  with  some  astonishment  and  answered, 
"Nothing  except  public  documents.  It's  a  good  thing 
that  I  was  able  to  do  some  reading  before  I  became 
Prime  Minister.    I  certainly  have  no  time  now." 


42  AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

Take  the  matter  of  languages.  Lloyd  George  has 
always  professed  that  he  did  not  know  French,  and  on 
all  his  trips  to  France  both  during  and  since  the  war 
he  carried  a  staff  of  interpreters.  He  understands  a 
good  deal  more  French  than  he  professes.  His  widely 
proclaimed  ignorance  of  the  language  has  stood  him  in 
good  stead  because  it  has  enabled  him  to  hear  a  great 
many  things  that  were  not  intended  for  his  ears.  It  is 
part  of  his  political  astuteness.  Smuts  is  an  accom- 
plished linguist.  It  has  been  said  of  him  that  he  "can  be 
silent  in  more  languages  than  any  man  in  South  Africa." 

Lloyd  George  is  a  clever  politician  with  occasional 
inspired  moments  but  he  is  not  exactly  a  statesman  as 
Disraeli  and  Gladstone  were.  Smuts  has  the  unusual 
combination  of  statesmanship  with  a  knowledge  of  every 
wrinkle  in  the  political  game. 

Take  his  experience  at  the  Paris  Peace  Conference. 
He  was  distinguished  not  so  much  for  what  he  did, 
(and  that  was  considerable),  but  for  what  he  opposed. 
No  man  was  better  qualified  to  voice  the  sentiment  of 
the  "small  nation."  Bom  of  proud  and  liberty-loving 
people,  —  an  infant  among  the  giants  —  he  was  attuned 
to  every  aspiration  of  an  hour  that  realized  many  a  one- 
time forlorn  national  hope.  Yet  his  statesmanship  tem- 
pered sentimental  impulse. 

In  that  gallery  of  treaty-makers  Lloyd  George,  Cle- 
menceau,  and  Wilson  focussed  the  "fierce  light"  that 
beat  about  the  proceedings.  But  it  was  Smuts,  in  the 
shadow,  who  contributed  largely  to  the  mental  power- 
plant  that  drove  the  work.  Lloyd  George  had  to  con- 
sider the  chapter  he  wrote  in  the  great  instrument  as 
something  in  the  nature  of  a  campaign  document  to  be 
employed  at  home,  while  Clemenceau  guided  a  steam- 
roller that  stooped  for  nothing  but  France.    The  more 


SMUTS  43 

or  less  unsophisticated  idealism  of  Woodrow  Wilson 
foundered  on  these  obstacles. 

Smuts,  with  his  uncanny  sense  of  prophecy,  foretold 
the  economic  consequences  of  the  peace.  Looking  ahead 
he  visualized  a  surly  and  unrepentant  Germany,  un- 
willing to  pay  the  price  of  folly;  a  bitter  and  disap- 
pointed Austria  gasping  for  economic  breath;  an 
aroused  and  indignant  Italy  raging  with  revolt  —  all 
the  chaos  that  spells  "peace"  today.  He  saw  the  Treaty 
as  a  new  declaration  of  war  instead  of  an  antidote  for 
discord.  His  judgment,  sadly  enough,  has  been  con- 
firmed. A  deranged  universe  shot  through  with  re- 
action and  confusion,  and  with  half  a  dozen  wars  sputter- 
ing on  the  horizon,  is  the  answer.  The  sob  and  surge 
of  tempest-bom  nations  in  the  making  are  lost  in  the 
din  of  older  ones  threatened  with  decay  and  disintegra- 
tion.   It  is  not  a  pleasing  spectacle. 

Smuts  signed  the  Treaty  but,  as  most  people  know, 
he  filed  a  memorandvmi  of  protest  and  explanation.  He 
believed  the  terms  uneconomic  and  therefore  unsound, 
but  it  was  worth  taking  a  chance  on  interpretation,  a  des- 
perate venture  perhaps,  but  anything  to  stop  the  blare 
and  bicker  of  the  coimcil  table  and  start  the  work  of 
reconstruction. 

At  Capetown  he  told  me  that  for  days  he  wrestled 
with  the  problem  "to  sign  or  not  to  sign."  Finally,  on 
the  day  before  the  Day  of  Days  in  the  Hall  of  Mirrors 
at  Versailles,  he  took  a  long  solitary  walk  in  the  Champs 
Elysee,  loveliest  of  Paris  parades.  Returning  to  his 
hotel  he  said  to  his  secretary,  Captain  E.  F.  C.  Lane, 
"I  have  decided  to  sign,  but  I  will  tell  the  reason  why." 
He  immediately  sat  down  at  his  desk  and  in  a  hand- 
writing noted  for  its  illegibility  wrote  the  famous  memo- 
randum. 


Ill 

WHAT  of  the  personal  side  of  Smuts?  While 
he  is  intensely  human  it  is  difficult  to  con- 
nect anecdote  with  him.  I  heard  one  at 
Capetown,  however,  that  I  do  not  think  has  seen  the 
light  of  print.     It  reveals  his  methods,  too. 

When  the  Germans  ran  amuck  in  1914  Smuts  was 
Minister  of  Defense  of  the  Union  of  South  Africa. 
The  Nationalists  immediately  began  to  make  life  un- 
comfortable for  him.  Balked  in  their  attempt  to  keep 
the  Union  out  of  the  struggle  they  took  another  tack. 
After  the  Botha  campaign  in  German  South- West 
Africa  was  well  under  way,  a  member  of  the  Opposition 
asked  the  Minister  of  Defense  the  following  question  in 
Parliament:  "How  much  has  South  Africa  paid  for 
remounts?"  The  Union  forces  employed  thousands  of 
horses  in  the  field  and  the  Nationalists  sought  to  make 
some  political  capital  out  of  an  expenditure  that  they 
called  "waste." 

Smuts  sent  over  to  Army  Headquarters  to  get  the 
figures.  He  was  told  that  it  would  take  twenty  clerks 
at  least  four  weeks  to  compile  the  data. 

"Never  mind,"  was  his  laconic  comment.  The  next 
day  happened  to  be  Question  Day  in  the  House.  As 
soon  as  the  query  about  the  remount  charge  came  up 
Smuts  calmly  rose  in  his  seat  and  replied: 

"It  was  exactly  eight  million  one  hundred  and  sixty- 
nine  thousand  pounds,  ten  shillings  and  sixpence."  He 
then  sat  down  without  any  further  remark. 

44 


Photograph  Copyright  by  Harrit  fir  Emng 

GENERAL  J.  C.  SMUTS 


SMUTS  45 

When  one  of  his  colleagues  asked  him  where  he  got 
this  information  he  said: 

**I  dug  it  out  of  my  own  mind.  It  will  take  the 
Nationalists  a  month  to  figure  it  out  and  by  that  time 
they  will  have  forgotten  all  about  it."  And  it  was 
forgotten. 

Smuts  not  only  has  a  keen  sense  of  humor  but  is 
swift  on  the  retort.  While  speaking  at  a  party  rally  in 
his  district  not  many  years  after  the  Boer  War  he  was 
continually  interrupted  by  an  ex-soldier.  He  stopped 
his  speech  and  asked  the  man  to  state  his  grievance. 
The  heckler  said: 

"General  de  la  Rey  guaranteed  the  men  fighting 
under  him  a  living." 

Quick  as  a  flash  Smuts  replied : 

"Nonsense.  What  he  guaranteed  you  was  certain 
death." 

Like  many  men  conspicuous  in  public  life  Smuts  gets 
up  early  and  has  polished  off  a  good  day's  work  before 
the  average  business  man  has  settled  down  to  his  job. 
There  is  a  big  difference  between  his  methods  of  work 
and  those  of  Lloyd  George.  The  British  Prime 
Minister  only  goes  to  the  House  of  Commons  when  he 
has  to  make  a  speech  or  when  some  important  question 
is  up  for  discussion.  Smuts  attends  practically  every 
session  of  Parliament,  at  least  he  did  while  I  was  in 
Capetown. 

One  reason  was  that  on  account  of  the  extraordinary 
position  in  which  he  found  himself,  any  moment  might 
have  produced  a  division  carrying  with  it  disastrous 
results  for  the  Government.  The  crisis  demanded  that 
he  remain  literally  on  the  job  all  the  time.  He  left 
little  to  his  lieutenants.  Confident  of  his  ability  in  de- 
bate he  was  always  willing  to  risk  a  showdown  but  he 
had  to  be  there  when  it  came. 


46  AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

I  watched  him  as  he  sat  in  the  House.  He  occupied 
a  front  bench  directly  opposite  Hertzog  and  where  he 
could  look  his  arch  enemy  squarely  in  the  eyes  all  the 
time.  I  have  seen  him  sit  like  a  Sphinx  for  an  hour 
without  apparently  moving  a  muscle.  He  has  culti- 
vated that  rarest  of  arts  which  is  to  be  a  good  listener. 
He  is  one  of  the  great  concentrators.  In  this  genius,  for 
it  is  little  less,  lies  one  of  the  secrets  of  his  success. 
During  a  lull  in  legislative  proceedings  he  has  a  habit 
of  taking  a  solitary  walk  out  in  the  lobby.  More  than 
once  I  saw  him  pacing  up  and  down,  always  with  an  ear 
cocked  toward  the  Assembly  Room  so  he  could  hear 
what  was  going  on  and  rush  to  the  rescue  if  necessary. 

In  the  afternoon  he  would  sometimes  go  into  the 
members'  smoking  room  and  drink  a  cup  of  coffee,  the 
popular  drink  in  South  Africa.  In  the  old  Boer  house- 
hold the  coffee  pot  is  constantly  boiling.  With  a  cup 
of  coffee  and  a  piece  of  "biltong"-  inside  him  a  Boer 
could  fight  or  trek  all  day.  Coffee  bears  the  same  rela- 
tion to  the  South  African  that  tea  does  to  the  English- 
man, save  that  it  is  consumed  in  much  larger  quantities. 
I  might  add  that  Smuts  neither  drinks  liquor  of  any 
kind  nor  smokes,  and  he  eats  sparingly.  He  admits  that 
his  one  dissipation  is  farming. 

This  comes  naturally  because  he  was  born  fifty  years 
ago  on  a  farm  in  what  is  known  as  the  Western  Province 
in  the  Karoo  country.  He  did  his  share  of  the  chores 
about  the  place  until  it  was  time  for  him  to  go  to  school. 
His  father  and  his  grandfather  were  farmers.  Inbred 
in  him,  as  in  most  Boers,  is  an  ardent  love  of  country 
life  and  especially  an  affection  for  the  mountains.  On 
more  than  one  occasion  he  has  climbed  to  the  top  of 
Table  Mountain,  which  is  no  inconsiderable  feat. 

There  are  two  ways  of  appraising  Smuts.    One  is  to 


SMUTS  47 

see  him  in  action  as  I  did  at  Capetown,  while  Parhament 
was  in  session.  The  other  is  to  get  him  with  the  back- 
ground of  his  farm  at  Irene,  a  little  way  station  about 
ten  miles  from  Pretoria.  Here,  in  a  rambling  one- 
story  house  surrounded  by  orchards,  pastures,  and  gar- 
dens, he  lives  the  simple  life.  In  the  western  part  of  the 
Transvaal  he  owns  a  real  farm.  He  showed  his  shrewd- 
ness in  the  acquisition  of  this  property  because  he  bought 
it  at  a  time  when  the  region  was  dubbed  a  "desert." 
Now  it  is  a  garden  spot. 

Irene  has  various  distinct  advantages.  For  one  thing 
it  is  his  permanent  home.  Groote  Schuur  is  the  prop- 
erty of  the  Government  and  he  owes  his  tenancy  of  it 
entirely  to  the  fortunes  of  politics.  At  Irene  is  planted 
his  hearthstone  and  around  it  is  mobilized  his  consider- 
able family.  There  are  six  little  Smutses.  Smuts 
married  the  sweetheart  of  his  youth  who  is  a  rarely 
congenial  helpmate.  It  was  once  said  of  her  that  she 
"went  about  the  house  with  a  baby  under  one  arm  and  a 
Greek  dictionary  under  the  other." 

Most  people  do  not  realize  that  the  Union  of  South 
Africa  has  two  capitals.  Capetown  with  the  House  of 
Parliament  is  the  center  of  legislation,  while  Pretoria, 
the  ancient  Kruger  stronghold,  with  its  magnificent  new 
Union  buildings  atop  a  commanding  eminence,  is  the 
fountain-head  of  administration.  With  Irene  only  ten 
miles  away  it  is  easy  for  Smuts  to  live  with  his  family 
after  the  adjournment  of  Parliament,  and  go  in  to  his 
office  at  Pretoria  every  day. 

I  have  already  given  you  a  hint  of  the  Smuts  personal 
appearance.  Let  us  now  take  a  good  look  at  him.  His 
forehead  is  lofty,  his  nose  arched,  his  mouth  large.  You 
know  that  his  blonde  beard  veils  a  strong  jaw.  The  eyes 
are  reminiscent  of  those  marvelous  orbs  of  Marshal 


48  AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

Foch  only  they  are  blue,  haunting  and  at  times  inex- 
orable. Yet  they  can  light  up  with  humor  and  glow  with 
friendliness. 

Smuts  is  essentially  an  out-of-doors  person  and  his 
body  is  wiry  and  rangy.  He  has  the  stride  of  a  man 
seasoned  to  the  long  march  and  who  is  equally  at  home 
in  the  saddle.  He  speaks  with  vigour  and  at  times  not 
without  emotion.  The  Boer  is  not  a  particularly 
demonstrative  person  and  Smuts  has  some  of  the  racial 
reserve.  His  personality  betokens  potential  strength, 
—  a  suggestion  of  the  unplumbed  reserve  that  keeps 
people  guessing.  This  applies  to  his  mental  as  well  as 
his  physical  capacity.  Frankly  cordial,  he  resents 
familiarity.  You  would  never  think  of  slapping  him  on 
the  shoulder  and  saying,  "Hello,  Jan."  More  than 
one  blithe  and  buoyant  person  has  been  frozen  into 
respectful  silence  in  such  a  foolhardy  undertaking. 

His  middle  name  is  Christian  and  it  does  not  belie 
a  strong  phase  of  his  character.  Without  carrying  his 
religious  convictions  on  his  coat-sleeve,  he  has  neverthe- 
less a  fine  spiritual  strain  in  his  make-up.  He  is  an 
all-round  dependable  person,  with  an  adaptability  tc 
environment  that  is  little  short  of  amazing. 


IV  . 

Now  LET  us  turn  to  another  and  less  conspicu- 
ous South  African  whose  point  of  view,  impe- 
rial, personal  and  patriotic,  is  the  exact  opposite 
of  that  of  Smuts.  Throughout  this  chapter  has  run  the 
strain  of  Hertzog,  first  the  Boer  General  fighting  gal- 
lantly in  the  field  with  Smuts  as  youthful  comrade; 
then  the  member  of  the  Botha  Cabinet;  later  the  bitter 
insurgent,  and  now  the  implacable  foe  of  the  order  that 
he  helped  to  establish.  What  manner  of  man  is  he  and 
what  has  he  to  say? 

I  talked  to  him  one  afternoon  when  he  left  the 
floor  leadership  to  his  chief  lieutenant,  a  son  of 
the  late  President  Steyn  of  the  Orange  Free  State. 
Like  his  father,  who  called  himself  "President"  to  the 
end  of  his  life  although  his  little  republic  had  slipped 
away  from  him,  he  has  never  really  yielded  to  English 
rule. 

We  adjourned  to  the  smoking  room  where  we  had  the 
inevitable  cup  of  South  African  coffee.  I  was  prepared 
to  find  a  fanatic  and  fire-eater.  Instead  I  faced  a  thin, 
undersized  man  who  looked  anything  but  a  general  and 
statesman.  Put  him  against  the  background  of  a  small 
New  England  town  and  you  would  take  him  for  an 
American  country  lawyer.  He  resembles  the  student 
more  than  the  soldier  and,  like  many  Boers,  speaks 
English  with  a  British  accent.  Nor  is  he  without  force. 
No  man  con  play  the  role  that  he  has  played  in  South 

49 


50  AN   AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

Africa  those  past  twenty-five  years  without  having 
substance  in  him. 

When  I  asked  him  to  state  his  case  he  said : 

"The  repubhcan  idea  is  as  old  as  South  Africa.  There 
was  a  republic  before  the  British  arrived.  The  idea  came 
from  the  American  Revolution  and  the  inspiration  was 
Washington.  The  Great  Trek  of  1836  was  a  protest 
very  much  like  the  one  we  are  making  today. 

"President  Wilson  articulated  the  Boer  feeling  with 
his  gospel  of  self-determination.  He  also  voiced  the 
aspirations  of  Ireland,  India  and  Egypt.  It  is  a  great 
world  idea  —  a  deep  moral  conviction  of  mankind,  this 
right  of  the  individual  state,  as  of  the  individual  for 
freedom. 

"Never  again  will  Transvaal  and  Orange  Free 
State  history  be  repeated.  No  matter  how  a  nation 
covets  another  —  and  I  refer  to  British  covetousness, 
—  if  the  nation  coveted  is  able  to  govern  itself  it  cannot 
and  must  not  be  assimilated.  It  is  one  result  of  the 
Great  War." 

"What  is  the  Nationalist  ideal?"  I  asked. 

"It  is  the  right  to  self-rule,"  replied  Hertzog.  "But 
there  must  be  no  conflict  if  it  can  be  avoided.  It  must 
prevail  by  reason  and  education.  At  the  present  time 
I  admit  that  the  majority  of  South  Africans  do  not 
want  republicanism.  The  Nationalist  mission  today  is 
to  keep  the  torch  lighted." 

"How  does  this  idea  fit  into  the  spirit  of  the  League 
of  Nations?"  I  queried. 

"It  fits  in  perfectly,"  was  the  response.  "We  Nation- 
alists favor  the  League  as  outlined  by  Wilson.  But  I 
fear  that  it  will  develop  into  a  capitalistic,  imperialistic 
empire  dominating  the  world  instead  of  a  league  of 
nations." 


SMUTS  51 

I  asked  Hei;tzog  how  he  reconciled  acquiescence  to 
Union  to  the  present  Nationalist  revolt.  The  answer 
was: 

"The  Nationalists  supported  the  Government  because 
of  their  attachment  to  General  Botha.  Deep  down  in 
his  heart  Botha  wanted  to  be  free  and  independent." 

"How  about  Ireland?"  I  demanded. 

The  General  smiled  as  he  responded:  "Our  position 
is  different.  It  does  not  require  dynamite,  but  educa- 
tion. With  us  it  is  a  simple  matter  of  the  will  of  the 
people.  I  do  not  think  that  conditions  in  South  Africa 
will  ever  reach  the  state  at  which  they  have  arrived  in 
Ireland." 

Commenting  on  the  Union  and  its  relations  to  the 
British  Empire  Hertzog  continued : 

"The  Union  is  not  a  failure  but  we  could  be  better 
governed.  The  thing  to  which  we  take  exception  is  that 
the  British  Government,  through  our  connection  with 
it,  is  in  a  position  by  which  it  gets  an  undue  advantage 
directly  and  indirectly  to  influence  legislation.  For  ex- 
ample, we  were  not  asked  to  conquer  German  South- 
West  Africa ;  it  was  a  command. 

"Very  much  against  the  feeling  of  the  old  population, 
that  is  the  Dutch  element,  we  were  led  into  participation 
in  the  war.  Today  this  old  population  feels  as  strongly 
as  ever  against  South  Africa  being  involved  in  Euro- 
pean politics.  It  feels  that  all  this  Empire  movement 
only  leads  in  that  direction  and  involves  us  in  world 
conflicts. 

"One  of  the  strongest  reasons  in  favor  of  separation 
and  the  setting  up  of  a  South  African  republic  is  to 
get  solidarity  betwen  the  English  and  the  Dutch.  I 
cannot  help  feeling  that  our  interests  are  being  con- 
stantly subordinated  to  those  of  Great  Britain.  My  firm 


52  AN    AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

conviction  is  that  the  freer  we  are,  and  the  more  inde- 
pendent of  Great  Britian  we  become,  the  more  we  shall 
favor  a  close  co-operation  with  her.  We  do  not  dislike 
the  British  as  such  but  we  do  object  to  the  Britisher 
coming  out  as  a  subject  of  Great  Britain  with  a  superior 
manner  and  looking  upon  the  Dutchman  as  a  dependent 
or  a  subordinate.  There  will  be  a  conflict  so  long  as 
they  do  not  recognize  our  heroes,  traditions  and  history. 
In  short,  we  are  determined  to  have  a  republic  of  South 
Africa  and  England  must  recognize  it.  To  oppose  it  is 
fatal." 

"Will  you  fight  for  it?"  I  asked. 

"I  hardly  think  that  it  will  come  to  force,"  said  the 
General.  "It  must  prevail  by  reason  and  education.  It 
may  not  come  in  one  year  but  it  will  come  before  many 
years." 

Hertzog's  feeling  is  not  shared,  as  he  intimated,  by 
the  majority  of  South  Africans  and  this  includes  many 
Dutchmen.  An  illuminating  analysis  of  the  Nationalist 
point  of  view  was  made  for  me  by  Sir  Thomas  Smartt, 
the  leader  of  the  Unionist  Party  and  a  virile  force  in 
South  African  politics.  He  brought  the  situation 
strikingly  home  to  America  when  he  said : 

"The  whole  Nationalist  movement  is  founded  on  race. 
Like  the  Old  Guard,  the  Boer  may  die  but  it  is  hard  for 
him  to  surrender.  His  heart  still  rankles  with  the  out- 
come of  the  Boer  War.  Would  the  American  South 
have  responded  to  an  appeal  to  arms  in  the  common 
cause  made  by  the  North  in  1876?  Probably  not.  Be- 
fore your  Civil  War  the  South  only  had  individual 
states.  The  Boers,  on  the  other  hand,  had  republics 
with  completely  organized  and  independent  govern- 
ments.   This  is  why  it  will  take  a  long  time  before  com- 


SMUTS  53 

plete  assimilation  is  accomplished.  A  second  Boer  War 
is  mithinkable." 

We  can  now  return  to  Smuts  and  find  out  just  how 
he  achieved  the  miracle  by  which  he  not  only  retained 
the  Premiership  but  spiked  the  guns  of  the  opposition. 

"When  I  left  Capetown  he  was  in  a  corner.  The 
Nationalist  majority  not  only  made  his  position  pre- 
carious but  menaced  the  integrity  of  Union,  and  through 
Union,  the  whole  Empire.  For  five  months,  —  the 
whole  session  of  Parliament,  —  he  held  his  ground. 
Every  night  when  he  went  to  bed  at  Groote  Schuur  he 
did  not  know  what  disaster  the  morrow  would  bring 
forth.  It  was  a  constant  juggle  with  conflicting 
interests,  ambitions  and  prejudices.  He  was  like  a  lion 
with  a  pack  snapping  on  all  sides. 

Now  you  can  see  why  he  sat  in  that  front  seat  in  the 
House  morning,  noon  and  night.  He  placated  the 
Labourites,  harmonized  the  Unionists,  and  flung  down 
the  gauntlet  openly  to  the  Nationalists.  Throughout 
that  historic  session,  and  although  much  legislation  was 
accomplished,  he  did  not  permit  the  consummation  of  a 
single  decisive  division.  It  was  a  triumph  of  parliamen- 
tary leadership. 

When  the  session  closed  in  July,  —  it  is  then  mid- 
winter in  Africa,  —  he  was  still  up  against  it.  The 
Nationalist  majority  was  a  phantom  that  dogged  his 
official  life  and  political  fortunes.  The  problem  now  was 
to  take  out  sane  insurance  against  a  repetition  of  the 
trial  and  uncertainty  which  he  had  undergone. 

Fate  in  the  shape  of  the  Nationalist  Party  played 
into  his  hands.  Under  the  stimulation  of  the  Nation- 
alists a  Vereeniging  Congress  was  called  at  Bloenfontein 
late  last  September.  The  Dutch  word  Vereeniging 
means  "reunion."    Hertzog  and  Tielman  Roos,  the  co- 


54  AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

leader  of  the  secessionists,  believed  that  by  bringing  the 
leading  representatives  of  the  two  leading  parties  to- 
gether the  appeal  to  racial  pride  might  carry  the  day. 
Smuts  did  not  attend  but  various  members  of  his  Cabinet 
did. 

Reunion  did  anything  but  reunite.  The  differences 
on  the  republican  issues  being  fundamental  were  like- 
wise irreconcilable.  The  Nationalists  stood  pat  on  se- 
cession while  the  South  African  Party  remained  loyal 
to  its  principles  of  Imperial  unity.  The  meeting  ended 
in  a  deadlock. 

Smuts,  a  field  marshal  of  politics,  at  once  saw  that 
the  hour  of  deliverance  from  his  dilemma  had  arrived. 
The  Nationalists  had  declared  themselves  unalterably 
for  separation.  He  converted  their  battle-cry  into  coin 
for  himself.  He  seized  the  moment  to  issue  a  call  for 
a  new  Moderate  Party  that  would  represent  a  fusion  of 
the  South  Africanists  and  the  Unionists.  In  one  of  his 
finest  docimients  he  made  a  plea  for  the  consolidation  of 
these  constructive  elements. 

In  it  he  said : 

Now  that  the  Nationalist  Party  is  firmly  resolved  to  continue 
its  propaganda  of  fanning  the  fires  of  secession  and  of  driving 
the  European  races  apart  from  each  other  and  ultimately  into 
conflict  with  each  other,  the  moderate  elements  of  our  popula- 
tion have  no  other  alternative  but  to  draw  closer  to  one  another 
in  order  to  fight  that  policy. 

A  new  appeal  must,  therefore,  be  made  to  all  right-minded 
South  Africans,  irrespective  of  party  or  race,  to  join  the  new 
Party,  which  will  be  strong  enough  to  safeguard  the  permanent 
interests  of  the  Union  against  the  disruptive  and  destructive 
policy  of  the  Nationalists.  Such  a  central  political  party  will 
not  only  continue  our  great  work  of  the  past,  but  is  destined 
to  play  a  weighty  role  in  the  future  peaceable  development  of 
South  Africa. 


SMUTS  55 

The  end  of  October  witnessed  the  ratification  of  this 
proposal  by  the  Unionists.  The  action  at  once  consoli- 
dated the  Premier's  position.  I  doubt  if  in  all  political 
history  you  can  uncover  a  series  of  events  more  paradox- 
ical or  perplexing  or  find  a  solution  arrived  at  with 
greater  skill  and  strategy.  It  was  a  revelation  of  Smuts 
with  his  ripe  statesmanship  put  to  the  test,  and  not  found 
wanting. 

At  the  election  held  four  months  later  Smuts  scored 
a  brilliant  triumph.  The  South  African  Party  in- 
creased its  representation  by  eighteen  seats,  while  the 
Nationalists  lost  heavily.  The  Labour  Party  was  al- 
most lost  in  the  wreckage.  The  net  result  was  that  the 
Premier  obtained  a  working  majority  of  twenty-two, 
which  guarantees  a  stable  and  loyal  Government  for  at 
least  five  years. 

It  only  remains  to  speculate  on  what  the  future  holds 
for  this  remarkable  man.  South  Africa  has  a  tragic 
habit  of  prematurely  destroying  its  big  men.  Rhodes 
was  broken  on  the  wheel  at  forty-nine,  and  Botha  suc- 
cumbed in  the  prime  of  life.  Will  Smuts  share  the  same 
fate? 

No  one  need  be  told  in  the  face  of  the  Smuts  per- 
formance that  he  is  a  world  asset.  The  question  is,  how 
far  will  he  go?  A  Cabinet  Minister  at  twenty-eight,  a 
General  at  thirty,  a  factor  in  international  affairs  before 
he  was  well  into  the  forties,  he  unites  those  rare  elements 
of  greatness  which  seem  to  be  so  sparsely  apportioned 
these  disturbing  days.  That  he  will  reconstruct  South 
Africa  there  is  no  doubt.  What  larger  responsibilities 
may  devolve  upon  him  can  only  be  guessed. 

Just  before  I  sailed  from  England  I  talked  with  a 
high-placed  British  official.     He  is  in  the  councils  of 


56  AN   AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

Empire  and  he  knows  Smuts  and  South  Africa.  I  asked 
him  to  indicate  what  in  his  opinion  would  be  the  next 
great  milepost  of  Smuts'  progress.    He  rephed: 

'The  destiny  of  Smuts  is  interwoven  with  the  destiny 
of  the  whole  British  Empire.  The  Great  War  bound 
the  Colonies  together  with  bonds  of  blood.  Out  of  this 
common  peril  and  sacrifice  has  been  knit  a  closer  Im- 
perial kinship.  During  the  war  we  had  an  Imperial 
War  Cabinet  composed  of  overseas  Premiers,  which  sat 
in  London.  Its  logical  successor  will  be  a  United 
British  Empire,  federated  in  policy  but  not  in  adminis- 
tration. Smuts  will  be  the  Prime  Minister  of  these 
United  States  of  Great  Britian." 

It  is  the  high  goal  of  a  high  career. 


THE   HEAVY  LINE   INDICATES  MR.   MARCOSSON'S  ROUTE 
IN   AFRICA 


CHAPTER  II  —  "CAPE-TO-CAIRO" 


WHEN  you  take  the  train  for  the  North  at 
Capetown  you  start  on  the  first  lap  of  what 
is  in  many  respects  the  most  picturesque 
journey  n  the  world.  Other  railways  tunnel  mighty 
mountains,  cross  seething  rivers,  traverse  scorching 
deserts,  and  invade  the  clouds,  but  none  has  so  romantic 
an  interest  or  is  bound  up  with  such  adventure  and 
imagination  as  this.  The  reason  is  that  at  Capetown 
begins  the  southern  end  of  the  famous  seven-thousand- 
mile  Cape-to-Cairo  Route,  one  of  the  greatest  dreams 
of  England's  prince  of  practical  dreamers,  Cecil  Rhodes. 
Today,  after  thirty  years  of  conflict  with  grudging 
Governments,  the  project  is  practically  an  accomplished 
fact. 

Woven  into  its  fabric  is  the  story  of  a  German  con- 
spiracy that  was  as  definite  a  cause  of  the  Great  War  as 
the  Balkan  mess  or  any  other  phase  of  Teutonic  inter- 
national meddling.  Along  its  highway  the  American 
mining  engineer  has  registered  a  little  known  evidence 
of  his  achievement  abroad.  The  route  taps  civilization 
and  crosses  the  last  frontiers  of  progress.  The  South 
African  end  discloses  an  illuminating  example  of  prof- 
itable nationalization.  Over  it  still  broods  the  person- 
ality of  the  man  who  conceived  it  and  who  left  his  im- 
press and  his  name  on  an  empire.  Attention  has  been 
directed  anew  to  the  enterprise  from  the  fact  that  shortly 
before  I  reached  Africa  two  aviators  flew  from  Cairo  to 

57 


58  AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

the  Cape  and  their  actual  flying  time  was  exactly  sixty- 
eight  hours. 

The  unbroken  iron  spine  that  was  to  link  North  and 
South  Africa  and  which  Rhodes  beheld  in  his  vision  of 
the  future,  will  probably  not  be  built  for  some  years. 
Traffic  in  Central  Africa  at  the  moment  does  not  justify 
it.  Besides,  the  navigable  rivers  in  the  Belgian  Congo, 
Egypt,  and  the  Soudan  lend  themselves  to  the  rail  and 
water  route  which,  with  one  short  overland  gap,  now 
enables  you  to  travel  the  whole  way  from  Cape  to  Cairo. 

The  very  inception  of  the  Cape-to-Cairo  project  gives 
you  a  glimpse  of  the  working  of  the  Rhodes  mind.  He 
left  the  carrying  out  of  details  to  subordinates.  When 
he  looked  at  the  map  of  Africa,  —  and  he  was  forever 
studying  maps,  —  and  ran  that  historic  line  through  it 
from  end  to  end  and  said,  "It  must  be  all  red,"  he  took 
no  cognizance  of  the  extraordinary  difficulties  that  lay 
in  the  way.  He  saw,  but  he  did  not  heed,  the  rainbow 
of  many  national  flags  that  spanned  the  continent.  A 
little  thing  like  millions  of  square  miles  of  jungle,  suc- 
cessions of  great  lakes,  or  wild  and  primitive  regions 
peopled  with  cannibals,  meant  nothing.  Money  and 
energy  were  to  him  merely  means  to  an  end. 

When  General  "Chinese"  Gordon,  for  example,  told 
him  that  he  had  refused  a  roomful  of  silver  for  his 
services  in  exterminating  the  Mongolian  bandits  Rhodes 
looked  at  him  in  surprise  and  said :  "Why  didn't  you  take 
it?  What  is  the  earthly  use  of  having  ideas  if  you 
haven't  the  money  with  which  to  carry  them  out?"  Here 
you  have  the  keynote  of  the  whole  Rhodes  business 
policy.  A  project  had  to  be  carried  through  regardless 
of  expense.  It  applied  to  the  Cape-to-Cairo  dream  just 
as  it  applied  to  every  other  enterprise  with  which  he  was 
associated. 


"CAPE-TO-CAIRO"  59 

The  all-rail  route  would  cost  billions  upon  billions, 
although  now  that  German  prestige  in  Africa  is  ended 
it  would  not  be  a  physical  and  political  impossibility. 
A  modification  of  the  original  plan  into  a  combination 
rail  and  river  scheme  permits  the  consummation  of  the 
vision  of  thirty  years  ago.  The  southern  end  is  all-rail 
mainly  because  the  Union  of  South  Africa  and  Rhodesia 
are  civilized  and  prosperous  countries.  I  made  the  en- 
tire journey  by  train  from  Capetown  to  the  rail-head  at 
Bukama  in  the  Belgian  Congo,  a  distance  of  2,700  miles, 
the  longest  continuous  link  in  the  whole  scheme.  This 
trip  can  be  made,  if  desirable,  in  a  through  car  in  about 
nine  days. 

I  then  continued  northward,  down  the  Lualaba  River, 
—  Livingstone  thought  it  was  the  Nile  —  then  by 
rail,  and  again  on  the  Lualaba  through  the  posts  of 
Kongolo,  Kindu  and  Ponthierville  to  Stanleyville  on 
the  Congo  River.  This  is  the  second  stage  of  the  Cape- 
to-Cairo  Route  and  knocks  off  an  additional  890  miles 
and  another  twelve  days.  Here  I  left  the  highway  to 
Egypt  and  went  down  the  Congo  and  my  actual  contact 
with  the  famous  line  ended.  I  could  have  gone  on,  how- 
ever, and  reached  Cairo,  with  luck,  in  less  than  eight 
weeks. 

From  Stanleyville  you  go  to  Mahagi,  which  is  on 
the  border  beteween  the  Congo  and  Uganda.  This  is 
the  only  overland  gap  in  the  whole  route.  It  covers 
roughly,  —  and  the  name  is  no  misnomer  I  am  told,  — 
680  miles  through  the  jungle  and  skirts  the  principal 
Congo  gold  fields.  A  road  has  been  built  and  motor 
cars  are  available.  The  railway  route  from  Stanleyville 
to  Mahagi,  which  will  link  the  Congo  and  the  Nile,  is 
surveyed  and  would  have  been  finished  by  this  time  but 
for  the  outbreak  of  the  Great  War.     The  Belgian 


eO  AN   AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

Minister  of  the  Colonies,  with  whom  I  travelled  in  the 
Congo  assured  me  that  his  Government  would  com- 
mence the  construction  within  the  next  two  years,  thus 
enabling  the  traveller  to  forego  any  hiking  on  the  long 
journey. 

Mahagi  is  on  the  western  side  of  Lake  Albert  and  is 
destined  to  be  the  lake  terminus  of  the  projected  Congo- 
Nile  Railway  which  will  be  an  extension  of  the  Soudan 
Railways.  Here  you  begin  the  journey  that  enlists 
both  railways  and  steamers  and  which  gives  practically 
a  straight  ahead  itinerary  to  Cairo.  You  journey  on 
the  Nile  by  way  of  Rejaf,  Kodok,  —  (the  Fashoda  that 
was)  — to  Kosti,  where  you  reach  the  southern  rail- 
head of  the  Soudan  Railways.  Thence  it  is  compara- 
tively easy,  as  most  travellers  know,  to  push  on  through 
Khartum,  Berber,  Wady  Haifa  and  Assuan  to  the 
Egyptian  capital.  The  distance  from  Mahagi  to  Cairo 
is  something  like  2,700  miles  while  the  total  mileage  from 
Capetown  to  Cairo,  along  the  line  that  I  have  indicated, 
is  7,000  miles. 

This,  in  brief,  is  the  way  you  make  the  trip  that 
Rhodes  dreamed  about,  but  not  the  way  he  planned  it. 
There  are  various  suggestions  for  alternate  routes  after 
you  reach  Bukama  or,  to  be  more  exact,  after  you  start 
down  the  first  stage  of  the  journey  on  the  Lualaba.  At 
Kabalo,  where  I  stopped,  a  railroad  runs  eastward  from 
the  river  to  Albertville,  on  the  shores  of  Lake  Tan- 
ganyika. Rhodes  wanted  to  use  the  400-mile  waterway 
that  this  body  of  water  provides  to  connect  the  railway 
that  came  down  from  the  North  with  the  line  that  begins 
at  the  Cape.  The  idea  was  to  employ  train  ferries. 
King  Leopold  of  Belgium  granted  Rhodes  the  right  to 
do  this  but  Germany  frustrated  the  scheme  by  refusing 
to  recognize  the  cession  of  the  strip  of  Congo  terri- 


"CAPE-TO-CAIRO"  61 

tory  between  Lake  Tanganyika  and  Lake  Kivu,  which 
was  an  essential  link. 

This  incident  is  one  evidence  of  the  many  attempts 
that  the  Germans  made  to  block  the  Cape-to-Cairo  pro- 
ject. Germany  knew  that  if  Rhodes,  and  through 
Rhodes  the  British  Empire,  could  establish  through 
communication  under  the  British  flag,  from  one  end 
of  Africa  to  the  other,  it  would  put  a  crimp  into  the 
Teutonic  scheme  to  dominate  the  whole  continent.  She 
went  to  every  extreme  to  interfere  with  its  advance. 

This  German  opposition  provided  a  reason  why  the 
consummation  of  the  project  was  so  long  delayed. 
Another  was,  that  except  for  the  explorer  and  the  big 
game  hunter,  there  was  no  particular  provocation  for 
moving  about  in  certain  portions  of  Central  Africa  until 
recently.  But  Germany  only  afforded  one  obstacle. 
The  British  Government,  after  the  fashion  of  govern- 
ments, turned  a  cold  shoulder  to  the  enterprise.  His- 
tory was  only  repeating  itself.  If  Disraeli  had  con- 
sulted his  colleagues  England  would  never  have  ac- 
quired the  Suez  Canal.     So  it  goes. 

Most  of  the  Rhodesian  links  of  the  Cape-to-Cairo 
Route  were  built  by  Rhodes  and  the  British  South 
Africa  Company,  while  the  line  from  Broken  Hill  to 
the  Congo  border  was  due  entirely  to  the  courage  and 
tenacity  of  Robert  Williams,  who  is  now  constructing 
the  so-called  Benguella  Railway  from  Lobito  Bay  in 
Portuguese  Angola  to  Bukama.  It  will  be  a  feeder  to 
the  Cape-to-Cairo  road  and  constitute  a  sort  of  back 
door  to  Egj^pt.  It  will  also  provide  a  shorter  outlet 
to  Europe  for  the  copper  in  the  Katanga  district  of  the 
Congo. 

"When  you  see  equatorial  Africa  and  more  especially 
that  part  which  lies  between  the  rail-head  at  Bukama 


02  AN   AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

and  Mahagi,  you  understand  why  the  all-rail  route  is  not 
profitable  at  the  moment.  It  is  for  the  most  part  an  un- 
cultivated area  principally  jungle,  with  scattered  white 
settlements  and  hordes  of  untrained  natives.  The  war 
set  back  the  development  of  the  Congo  many  years. 
Now  that  the  world  is  beginning  to  understand  the  possi- 
bilities of  Central  Africa  for  palm  oil,  cotton,  rubber, 
and  coffee,  the  traffic  to  justify  the  connecting  railways 
will  eventually  come. 


II 

SHORTLY  after  my  return  from  Africa  I  was 
talking  with  a  well-known  American  business 
man  who,  after  making  the  usual  inquiries  about 
lions,  cannibals  and  hair-breadth  escapes,  asked:  "Is  it 
dangerous  to  go  about  in  South  Africa?"  When  I 
assured  him  that  both  my  pocket-book  and  I  were  safer 
there  than  on  Broadway  in  New  York  or  State  Street 
in  Chicago,  he  was  surprised.  Yet  his  question  is  typi- 
cal of  a  widespread  ignorance  about  all  Africa  and  even 
its  most  developed  area. 

What  people  generally  do  not  understand  is  that  the 
lower  part  of  that  one-time  Dark  Continent  is  one  of 
the  most  prosperous  regions  in  the  world,  where  the 
home  currency  is  at  a  premium  instead  of  a  discount; 
where  the  high  cost  of  living  remains  a  stranger  and 
where  you  get  little  suggestion  of  the  commercial  rack 
and  ruin  that  are  disturbing  the  rest  of  the  universe. 
While  the  war-ravaged  nations  and  their  neighbors  are 
feeling  their  dubious  way  towards  economic  reconstruc- 
tion, the  Union  of  South  Africa  is  on  the  wave  of  a 
striking  expansion.  It  affords  an  impressive  contrast 
to  the  demoralized  productivity  of  Europe  and  for  that 
matter  the  United  States. 

South  Africa  presents  many  economic  features  of  dis- 
tinct and  unique  interest.  A  glance  at  its  steam  trans- 
portation discloses  rich  material.  Fundamentally  the 
railroads  of  any  country  are  the  real  measures  of  its 
progress.    In  Africa  particularly  they  are  the  mileposts 

63 


64  AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

of  civilization.  In  1876  there  were  only  400  miles  on  the 
whole  continent.  Today  there  are  over  30,000  miles. 
Of  this  network  of  rails  exactly  11,478  miles  are  in  the 
Union  of  South  Africa  and  they  comprise  the  second 
largest  mileage  in  the  world  under  one  management. 

More  than  this,  they  are  Government  owned  and 
operated.  Despite  this  usual  handicap  they  pay.  No 
particular  love  of  Government  control,  —  which  is  in- 
variably an  invitation  for  political  influence  to  do  its 
worst,  —  animated  the  development  of  these  railways. 
As  in  Australia,  where  private  capital  refused  to  build, 
it  was  a  case  of  necessity.  In  South  Africa  there  was 
practically  no  private  enterprise  to  sidestep  the  obliga- 
tion that  the  need  of  adequate  transportation  imposed. 
The  country  was  new,  hostile  savages  still  swarmed  the 
frontiers,  and  the  white  man  had  to  battle  with  Zulu  and 
Kaffir  for  every  area  he  opened.  In  the  absence  of 
navigable  rivers  —  there  are  none  in  the  Union  — 
the  steel  rail  had  to  do  the  pioneering.  Besides,  the 
Boers  had  a  strong  prejudice  against  the  railroads  and 
regarded  the  iron  horse  as  a  menace  to  their  isolation. 

The  first  steam  road  on  the  continent  of  Africa  was 
constructed  by  private  enterprise  from  the  suburb  of 
Durban  in  Natal  into  the  town.  It  was  a  mile  and  three- 
quarters  in  length  and  was  opened  for  traffic  in  1860. 
Railway  construction  in  the  Cape  Colony  began  about 
the  same  time.  The  Government  ownership  of  the  lines 
was  inaugurated  in  1873  and  it  has  continued  without 
interruption  ever  since.  The  real  epoch  of  railway 
building  in  South  Africa  started  with  the  great  mineral 
discoveries.  First  came  the  uncovering  of  diamonds 
along  the  Orange  River  and  the  opening  up  of  the 
Kimberley  region,  which  added  nearly  2,000  miles  of 
railway.    With  the  finding  of  gold  in  the  Rand  on  what 


"CAPE-TO-CAIRO"  65 

became  the  site  of  Johannesburg,  another  1,500  miles 
were  added. 

Since  most  nationalized  railways  do  not  pay  it  is 
interesting  to  take  a  look  at  the  African  balance  sheet. 
Almost  without  exception  the  South  African  railways 
have  been  operated  at  a  considerable  net  profit.  These 
profits  some  years  have  been  as  high  as  £2,590,917. 
During  the  war,  when  there  was  a  natural  slump  in 
traffic  and  when  all  soldiers  and  Government  supplies 
were  carried  free  of  cost,  they  aggregated  in  1915,  for 
instance,  £749,125. 

One  fiscal  feature  of  these  South  African  railroads 
is  worth  emphasizing.  Under  the  act  of  Union  "all 
profits,  after  providing  for  interest,  depreciation  and 
betterment,  shall  be  utilized  in  the  reduction  of  tariffs, 
due  regard  being  had  to  the  agricultural  and  industrial 
development  within  the  Union  and  the  promotion  by 
means  of  cheap  transport  of  the  settlement  of  an  agri- 
cultural population  in  the  inland  portions  of  the  Union." 
The  result  is  that  the  rates  on  agricultural  products, 
low-grade  ores,  and  certain  raw  materials  are  possibly 
the  lowest  in  the  world.  In  other  countries  rates  had 
to  be  increased  during  the  war  but  in  South  Africa  no 
change  was  made,  so  as  not  to  interfere  with  the  agri- 
cultural, mineral  and  industrial  development  of  the 
country. 

Nor  is  the  Union  behind  in  up-to-date  transportation. 
A  big  program  for  electrification  has  been  blocked  out 
and  a  section  is  under  conversion.  Some  of  the  power 
generated  will  be  sold  to  the  small  manufacturer  and 
thus  production  wiU  be  increased. 

Stimulating  the  railway  system  of  South  Africa  is  a 
single  personality  which  resembles  the  self-made  Ameri- 
can wizard  of  transportation  more  than   any   other 


66  AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

Britisher  that  I  have  met  with  the  possible  exception  of 
Sir  Erie  Geddes,  at  present  Minister  of  Transport  of 
Great  Britain  and  who  left  his  impress  on  England's 
conduct  of  the  war.  He  is  Sir  William  W.  Hoy,  whose 
official  title  is  General  Manager  of  the  South  African 
Railways  and  Ports.  Big,  vigorous,  and  forward-look- 
ing, he  sits  in  a  small  office  in  the  Railway  Station  at 
Capetown,  with  his  finger  literally  on  the  pulse  of 
nearly  12,000  miles  of  traffic.  During  the  war  Walker 
D.  Hines,  as  Director  General  of  the  American  Rail- 
ways, was  steward  of  a  vaster  network  of  rails  but  his 
job  was  an  emergency  one  and  terminated  when  that 
emergency  subsided.  Sir  William  Hoy,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  set  to  a  task  which  is  not  equalled  in  extent, 
scope  or  responsibility  by  any  other  similar  official. 

Like  James  J.  Hill  and  Daniel  Willard  he  rose  from 
the  ranks.  At  Capetown  he  told  me  of  his  great  admira- 
tion for  American  railways  and  their  influence  in  the 
system  he  dominates.  Among  other  things  he  said: 
"We  are  taking  our  whole  cue  for  electrification  from 
the  railroads  of  your  country  and  more  especially  the 
admirable  precedent  established  by  the  Chicago,  Mil- 
waukee &  St.  Paul  Railway.  I  believe  firmly  in  wide 
electrification  of  present-day  steam  transport.  The 
great  practical  advantages  are  more  uniform  speed  and 
the  elimination  of  stops  to  take  water.  It  also  affords 
improved  acceleration,  greater  reliability  as  to  timing, 
especially  on  heavy  grades,  and  stricter  adherence  to 
schedule.  There  are  enormous  advantages  to  single  lines 
like  ours  in  South  Africa.  Likewise,  crossings  and  train 
movements  can  be  arranged  with  greater  accuracy, 
thereby  reducing  delays.  Perhaps  the  greatest  saving 
is  in  haulage,  that  is,  in  the  employment  of  the  heavy 
electric  locomotive.    It  all  tends  toward  a  denser  traffic. 


"CAPE-TO-CAIRO"  67 

"Behind  this  whole  process  of  electrification  lies  the 
need,  created  by  the  Great  War,  for  coal  conservation 
and  for  a  motive  power  that  will  speed  up  production  of 
all  kinds.  We  have  abundant  coal  in  the  Union  of 
South  Africa  and  by  consuming  less  of  it  on  our  rail- 
ways we  will  be  in  a  stronger  position  to  export  it  and 
thus  strengthen  our  international  position  and  keep  the 
value  of  our  money  up." 

Since  Sir  William  has  touched  upon  the  coal  supply 
we  at  once  get  a  link,  —  and  a  typical  one  —  with  the 
ramified  resource  of  the  Union  of  South  Africa.  No 
product,  not  even  those  precious  stones  that  lie  in  the 
bosom  of  Kimberley,  or  the  glittering  golden  ore  im- 
bedded in  the  Rand,  has  a  larger  political  or  economic 
significance  just  now.  Nor  does  any  commodity  figure 
quite  so  prominently  in  the  march  of  world  events. 

In  peace,  as  in  war,  coal  spells  life  and  power.  It 
was  the  cudgel  that  the  one-time  proud  and  arrogant 
Germany  held  menacingly  over  the  head  of  the  unhappy 
neutral,  and  extorted  special  privilege.  At  the  moment 
I  write,  coal  is  the  storm  center  of  controversy  that 
ranges  from  the  Ruhr  Valley  of  Germany  to  the  Welsh 
fields  of  Britain  and  affects  the  destinies  of  statesmen 
and  of  countries.  We  are  not  without  fuel  troubles,  as 
our  empty  bins  indicate.  The  nation,  therefore,  with 
cheap  and  abundant  coal  has  a  bargaining  asset  that 
insures  industrial  peace  at  home  and  trade  prestige 
abroad. 

South  Africa  not  only  has  a  low-priced  and  ample 
coal  supply  but  it  is  in  a  convenient  point  for  distribu- 
tion to  the  whole  Southern  hemisphere,  —  in  fact 
Europe  and  other  sections.  On  past  production  the 
Union  ranked  only  eleventh  in  a  list  of  coal-producing 
countries,  the  output  being  about  8,000,000  tons  a  year 


68  AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

before  the  war  and  something  over  10,000,000  tons  in 
1919.  This  output,  however,  is  no  guide  to  the  magni- 
tude of  its  fields.  Until  comparatively  recent  times  they 
have  been  little  exploited,  not  because  of  inferiority 
but  because  of  the  restricted  output  prior  to  the  new 
movement  to  develop  a  bunker  and  export  trade.  With- 
out an  adequate  geological  survey  the  investigations 
made  during  the  last  twelve  months  indicate  a  potential 
supply  of  over  60,000,000  tons  and  immense  areas  have 
not  been  touched  at  all. 

The  war  changed  the  whole  coal  situation.  Labour 
conflicts  have  reduced  the  British  output;  a  huge  part 
of  Germany's  supply  must  go  to  France  as  an  indem- 
nity, while  our  own  fields  are  sadly  under-worked,  for  a 
variety  of  causes.  All  these  conditions  operate  in  favor 
of  the  South  African  field,  which  is  becoming  increas- 
ingly important  as  a  source  of  supply. 

Despite  her  advantage  the  prices  remain  astonish- 
ingly low,  when  you  compare  them  with  those  prevail- 
ing elsewhere.  English  coal,  which  in  1912  cost  about 
nine  shillings  a  ton  at  pithead,  costs  considerably  more 
than  thirty  shillings  today.  The  average  pithead  price 
of  South  African  coal  in  1915  was  five  shillings  two- 
pence a  ton  and  at  the  time  of  my  visit  to  South  Africa 
in  1919  was  still  under  seven  shillings  a  ton.  Capetown 
and  Durban,  the  two  principal  harbours  of  the  Union, 
are  coaling  stations  of  Empire  importance.  There  you 
can  see  the  flags  of  a  dozen  nations  flying  from  ships 
that  have  put  in  for  fuel.  Thanks  to  the  war  these 
ports  are  in  the  center  of  the  world's  great  trade  routes 
and  thus,  geographically  and  economically  their  posi- 
tion is  unique  for  bunkering  and  for  export. 

The  price  of  bunker  coal  is  a  key  to  the  increased 
overhead  cost  of  world  trade,  as  a  result  of  the  war.  The 


"CAPE-TO-CAIRO"  69 

Belgian  boat  on  which  I  travelled  from  the  shores  of  the 
Congo  to  Antwerp  coaled  at  Teneriffe,  where  the  price 
per  ton  was  seven  pounds.  It  is  interesting  to  compare 
this  with  the  bunker  price  at  Capetown  of  a  little  more 
than  two  pounds  per  ton,  or  at  Durban  where  the  rate 
is  one  pound  ten  shillings  a  ton.  In  the  face  of  these 
figures  you  can  readily  see  what  an  economic  advantage 
is  accruing  to  the  Union  of  South  Africa  with  reference 
to  the  whole  vexing  question  of  coal  supply. 

We  can  now  go  into  the  larger  matter  of  South 
Africa's  business  situation  in  the  light  of  peace  and  world 
reconstruction.  I  have  already  shown  how  the  war, 
and  the  social  and  industrial  upheaval  that  followed  in 
its  wake  have  enlarged  and  fortified  the  coal  situation 
in  the  Union.  Practically  all  other  interests  are  simi- 
larly affected.  The  outstanding  factor  in  the  prosperity 
of  the  Union  has  been  the  development  of  war-bom 
self-sufficiency.  I  used  to  think  during  the  conflict 
that  shook  the  world,  that  this  gospel  of  self -contain- 
ment would  be  one  of  the  compensations  that  Britain 
would  gain  for  the  years  of  blood  and  slaughter.  So  far 
as  Britain  is  concerned  this  hope  has  not  been  realized. 
When  I  was  last  in  England  huge  quantities  of  Ger- 
man dyes  were  being  dumped  on  her  shores  to  the  loss 
and  dismay  of  a  new  coal-tar  industry  that  had  been 
developed  during  the  war.  German  wares  like  toys 
and  novelties  were  now  pouring  in.  And  yet  England 
wondered  why  her  exchange  was  down ! 

In  South  Africa  the  situation  has  been  entirely  dif- 
ferent. She  alone  of  all  the  British  dominions  is  assert- 
ing an  almost  pugnacious  self-sufficiency.  Cut  off  from 
outside  supplies  for  over  four  years  by  the  relentless 
submarine  warfare,  and  the  additional  fact  that  nearly 
all  the  ships  to  and  from  the  Cape  had  to  carry  war 


70  AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

supplies  or  essential  products,  she  was  forced  to  develop 
her  internal  resources.  The  consequence  is  an  expan- 
sion of  agriculture,  industry  and  manufactures.  In- 
stead of  being  as  she  was  often  called,  "a  country  of 
samples,"  she  has  become  a  domain  of  active  produc- 
tion, as  is  attested  by  an  industrial  output  valued  at 
£62,000,000  in  1918.  Before  the  war  the  British  and 
American  manufacturer,  —  and  there  is  a  considerable 
market  for  American  goods  in  the  Cape  Colony,  — 
could  undersell  the  South  African  article.  That  condi- 
tion is  changed  and  the  home-made  article  produced 
with  much  cheaper  labour  than  obtains  either  in  Europe 
or  the  United  States,  has  the  field. 

Let  me  emphasize  another  striking  fact  in  connection 
with  this  South  African  prosperity.  During  the  war 
I  had  occasion  to  observe  at  first-hand  the  economic 
conditions  in  every  neutral  country  in  Europe.  I  was 
deeply  impressed  with  the  prosperity  of  Sweden,  Spain 
and  Switzerland,  and  to  a  lesser  extent  Holland,  who 
made  hay  while  their  neighbors  reaped  the  tares  of 
war.  Japan  did  likewise.  These  nations  were  largely 
profiteers  who  capitalized  a  colossal  misfortune.  They 
got  much  of  the  benefit  and  little  of  the  horror  of  the 
upheaval. 

Not  so  with  South  Africa.  She  played  an  active 
part  in  the  war  and  at  the  same  time  brought  about  a 
legitimate  expansion  of  her  resources.  One  point  in 
her  favor  is  that  while  she  sent  tens  of  thousands  of  her 
sons  to  fight,  her  own  territory  escaped  the  scar  and 
ravage  of  battle.  All  the  fighting  in  Africa,  so  far 
as  the  Union  was  concerned,  was  in  German  South- 
West  Africa  and  German  East  Africa.  After  my  years 
in  tempest-tossed  Europe  it  was  a  pleasant  change  to 
catch  the  buoyant,  confident,  unwearied  spirit  of  South 
Africa. 


"CAPE-TO-CAIRO"  71 

I  have  dwelt  upon  coal  because  it  happens  to  be  a 
significant  economic  asset.  Coal  is  merely  a  phase  of 
the  South  African  resources.  In  1919  the  Union 
produced  £35,000,000  in  gold  and  £7,200,000  in  dia- 
monds. The  total  mining  production  was,  roughly, 
£50,000,000.  This  mining  treasure  is  surpassed  by  the 
agricultural  output,  of  which  nearly  one-third  is  ex- 
ported. Land  is  the  real  measure  of  permanent  wealth. 
The  hoard  of  gold  and  diamonds  in  time  becomes  ex- 
hausted but  the  soil  and  its  fruits  go  on  forever. 

The  moment  you  touch  South  African  agriculture  you 
reach  a  real  romance.  Nowhere,  not  even  in  the  winning 
of  the  American  West  by  the  Mormons,  do  you  get  a 
more  dramatic  spectacle  of  the  triumph  of  the  pioneer 
over  combative  conditions.  The  Mormons  made  the 
Utah  desert  bloom,  and  the  Boers  and  their  British  col- 
leagues wrested  riches  from  the  bare  veldt.  The  Mor- 
mons fought  Indians  and  wrestled  with  drought,  while 
the  Dutch  in  Africa  and  their  English  comrades  battled 
with  Kaffirs,  Hottentots  and  Zulus  and  endured  a  no 
less  grilling  exposure  to  sun. 

The  crops  are  diversified.  One  of  the  staples  of  South 
Africa,  for  example,  is  the  mealie,  which  is  nothing 
more  or  less  than  our  own  American  corn,  but  not  quite 
so  good.  It  provides  the  principal  food  of  the  natives 
and  is  eaten  extensively  by  the  European  as  well.  On 
a  dish  of  mealie  porridge  the  Kaffir  can  keep  the  human 
machine  going  for  twenty-four  hours.  Its  prototype  in 
the  Congo  is  manice  flour.  In  the  Union  nearly  five 
million  acres  are  under  maize  cultivation,  which  is 
exactly  double  the  area  in  1911.  The  value  of  the 
maize  crop  last  year  was  approximately  a  million  six 
hundred  thousand  pounds.  Similar  expansion  has  been 
the  order  in  tobacco,  wheat,  fruit,  sugar  and  half  a 
dozen  other  products. 


72  AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

South  Africa  is  a  huge  cattle  country.  The  Boers 
have  always  excelled  in  the  care  of  live  stock  and  it  is 
particularly  due  to  their  efforts  that  the  Union  today 
has  more  than  seven  million  head  of  cattle,  which  repre- 
sents another  hundred  per  cent  increase  in  less  than  ten 
years. 

This  matter  of  live  stock  leads  me  to  one  of  the  really 
picturesque  industries  of  the  Union  which  is  the  breed- 
ing of  ostriches,  "the  birds  with  the  golden  feathers." 
Ask  any  man  who  raises  these  ungainly  birds  and  he  will 
tell  you  that  with  luck  they  are  far  better  than  the  pro- 
verbial goose  who  laid  the  eighteen-karat  eggs.  The 
combination  of  F's  —  femininity,  fashion  and  feathers 
—  has  been  productive  of  many  fortunes.  The  busi- 
ness is  inclined  to  be  fickle  because  it  depends  upon  the 
female  temperament.  The  ostrich  feather,  however,  is 
always  more  or  less  in  fashion.  With  the  outbreak  of 
the  war  there  was  a  tremendous  slump  in  feathers, 
which  was  keenly  felt  in  South  Africa.  With  peace, 
the  plume  again  became  the  thing  and  the  drooping 
industry  expanded  with  get-rich-quick  proportions. 

Port  Elizabeth  in  the  Cape  Colony  is  the  center  of 
the  ostrich  feather  trade.  It  is  the  only  place  in  the 
world,  I  believe,  devoted  entirely  to  plumage.  Not  long 
before  I  arrived  in  South  Africa  £85,000  of  feathers 
were  disposed  of  there  in  three  days.  It  no  uncommon 
thing  for  a  pound  of  prime  plumes  to  fetch  £100.  The 
demand  has  become  so  keen  that  350,000  ostriches  in 
the  Union  can  scarcely  keep  pace  with  it.  Before  the 
war  there  were  more  than  800,000  of  these  birds  but  the 
depression  in  feathers  coupled  with  drought,  flood  and 
other  causes,  thinned  out  the  ranks.  It  takes  three 
years  for  an  ostrich  chick  to  become  a  feather  producer. 

America "  has   a   considerable   part   in   shaping   the 


"CAPE-TO-CAIRO"  73 

ostrich  feather  market.  As  with  diamonds,  we  are  the 
largest  consumers.  You  can  go  to  Port  EHzabeth  any- 
day  and  find  a  group  of  Yankees  industriously  bidding 
against  each  other.  On  one  occasion  two  New  York 
buyers  started  a  competition  that  led  to  an  eleven  weeks 
orgy  that  registered  a  total  net  sale  of  more  than 
£100,000  of  feathers.  They  are  still  talking  about  it 
down  there. 

South  Africa  has  not  only  expanded  in  output  but 
her  area  is  also  enlarged.  The  Peace  Conference  gave 
her  the  mandate  for  German  South- West  Africa,  which 
was  the  first  section  of  the  vanished  Teutonic  Empire  in 
Africa.  It  occupies  more  than  a  quarter  or  the  whole 
area  of  the  continent  south  of  the  Zambesi  River.  While 
the  word  "mandate"  as  construed  by  the  peace  sharks  at 
Paris  is  supposed  to  mean  the  amiable  stewardship  of 
a  country,  it  really  amounts  to  nothing  more  or  less  than 
an  actual  and  benevolent  assimilation.  This  assimila- 
tion is  very  much  like  the  paternal  interest  that  holding 
companies  in  the  good  old  Wall  Street  days  felt  for 
small  and  competitive  concerns.  In  other  words,  it  is 
safe  to  assume  that  henceforth  German  South- West 
Africa  will  be  a  permanent  part  of  the  Union. 

The  Colony's  chief  asset  is  comprised  in  the  so-called 
German  South- West  African  Diamond  Fields,  which, 
with  the  Congo  Diamond  Fields,  provide  a  considerable 
portion  of  the  small  stones  now  on  the  market.  These 
two  fields  are  alike  in  that  they  are  alluvial  which  means 
that  the  diamonds  are  easily  gathered  by  a  washing 
process.  No  shafts  are  sunk.  It  is  precisely  like  gold 
washing. 

The  German  South- West  mines  have  an  American 
interest.  In  the  reoganization  following  the  conquest 
of  German  South- West  Africa  by  the  South  African 


74  AN   AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

Army  under  General  Botha  the  control  had  to  become 
Anglo-Saxon.  The  Anglo-American  Corporation 
which  has  extensive  interests  in  South  Africa  and  which 
is  financed  by  London  and  New  York  capitalists,  the 
latter  including  J.  P.  Morgan,  Charles  H.  Sabin  and 
W.  B.  Thompson,  acquired  these  fields.  It  is  an  inter- 
esting commentary  on  post-war  business  readjustment 
to  discover  that  there  is  still  a  German  interest  in  these 
mines.  It  makes  one  wonder  if  the  German  will  ever 
be  eradicated  from  his  world-wide  contact  with  every 
point  of  commercial  activity. 

It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  South  Africa,  in 
the  light  of  all  the  facts  that  I  have  enumerated,  should 
be  prosperous.  Take  the  money,  always  a  test  of  na- 
tional economic  health.  At  Capetown  I  used  the  first 
golden  sovereign  that  I  had  seen  since  early  in  1914. 
This  was  not  only  because  the  Union  happens  to  be  a 
great  gold-producing  country  but  because  she  has  an 
excess  of  exports  over  imports.  Her  money,  despite 
its  intimate  relation  with  that  of  Great  Britain,  which 
has  so  sadly  depreciated,  is  at  a  premium. 

I  got  expensive  evidence  of  this  when  I  went  to  the 
bank  at  Capetown  to  get  some  cash.  I  had  a  letter  of 
credit  in  terms  of  English  pounds.  To  my  surprise,  I 
only  got  seventeen  shillings  and  sixpence  in  African 
money  for  every  English  pound,  which  is  nominally 
worth  twenty  shillings.  Six  months  after  I  left,  this 
penalty  had  increased  to  three  shillings.  To  such  an 
extent  has  the  proud  English  pound  sterling  declined 
and  in  a  British  dominion  too! 

South  Africa  has  put  an  embargo  on  the  export  of 
sovereigns.  One  reason  was  that  during  the  first  three 
years  of  the  war  a  steady  stream  of  these  golden  coins 
went  surreptitiously  to  East  India,  where  an  unusually 


"CAPE-TO-CAIRO"  75 

high  premium  for  gold  rules,  especially  in  the  bazaars. 
The  goldsmiths  find  difficulty  in  getting  material.  The 
inevitable  smuggling  has  resulted.  In  order  to  put  a 
check  on  illicit  removal,  all  passengers  now  leaving  the 
Union  are  searched  before  they  board  their  ships.  Nor 
is  it  a  half-hearted  procedure.  It  is  as  drastic  as  the 
war-time  scrutiny  on  frontiers. 

To  sum  up  the  whole  business  situation  in  the  Union 
of  South  Africa  is  to  find  that  the  spirit  of  production, 
—  the  most  sorely  needed  thing  in  the  world  today  — 
is  that  of  persistent  advance.  I  dwell  on  this  because 
it  is  in  such  sharp  contrast  with  what  is  going  on 
throughout  the  rest  of  a  universe  that  staggers  under 
sloth,  and  where  the  will-to-work  has  almost  become  a 
lost  art.  That  older  and  more  complacent  order  which 
is  represented  for  example  by  France,  Italy  and  Eng- 
land may  well  seek  inspiration  from  this  South  African 
beehive. 


Ill 

WITH  this  economic  setting  for  the  whole 
South  African  picture  and  a  visualization 
of  the  Cape-to-Cairo  Route  let  us  start  on 
the  long  journey  that  eventually  took  me  to  the  heart 
of  equatorial  Africa.  The  immediate  objectives,  so  far 
as  this  chapter  is  concerned,  are  Kimberley,  Johannes- 
burg and  Pretoria,  names  and  towns  that  are  synony- 
mous with  thrilling  chapters  in  the  development  of 
Africa  and  more  especially  the  Union. 

You  depart  from  Capetown  in  the  morning  and  for 
hours  you  remain  in  the  friendly  company  of  the  moun- 
tains. Table  Mountain  has  hovered  over  you  during  the 
whole  stay  at  the  capital  and  you  regretfully  watch  this 
"Gray  Father"  fade  away  in  the  distance.  In  the  even- 
ing you  pass  through  the  Hex  River  country  where  the 
canyon  is  reminiscent  of  Colorado.  Soon  there  bursts 
upon  you  the  famous  Karoo  country,  so  familiar  to  all 
readers  of  South  African  novels  and  more  especially 
those  of  Olive  Schreiner,  Richard  Dehan  and  Sir 
Percy  Fitz  Patrick.  It  is  an  almost  treeless  plain 
dotted  here  and  there  with  Boer  homesteads.  Their 
isolation  suggests  battle  with  element  and  soil.  The 
country  immediately  around  Capetown  is  a  paradise 
of  fruit  and  flowers,  but  as  you  travel  northward  the 
whole  character  changes.    There  is  less  green  and  more 

70 


Photograph  Copyright  hy  W.  b"  D.  Dovmey 

CECIL  RHODES 


"CAPE-TO-CAIRO"  77 

brown.  After  the  Karoo  comes  the  equally  famous 
veldt,  studded  with  the  kopjes  that  became  a  part  of  the 
world  vocabulary  with  the  Boer  War.  Behind  these 
low,  long  hills,  —  they  suggest  flat,  rocky  hummocks  — 
the  South  African  burghers  made  many  a  desperate 
stand  against  the  English. 

When  you  see  the  kopjes  you  can  readily  understand 
why  it  took  so  long  to  conquer  the  Boers.  The  Dutch 
knew  every  inch  of  the  land  and  every  man  was  a  crack 
shot  from  boyhood.  In  these  hills  a  handful  could  hold 
a  small  army  at  bay.  All  through  this  region  you  en- 
counter places  that  have  become  part  of  history.  You 
pass  the  ruins  of  Kitchener's  blockhouses,  —  they  really 
ended  the  Boer  War  —  and  almost  before  you  realize 
it,  you  cross  the  Modder  River,  where  British  military 
prestige  got  a  bloody  repulse.  Instinctively  there  come 
to  mind  the  struggles  of  Cronje,  DeWet,  Joubert,  and 
the  rest  of  those  Boer  leaders  who  made  this  region  a 
small  Valhalla. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  of  the  second  day  you  suddenly 
get  a  "feel"  of  industry.  The  veldt  becomes  populated 
and  before  long  huge  smokestacks  loom  against  the 
sky.  You  are  at  Kimberly.  The  average  man  associates 
this  place  with  a  famous  siege  in  the  Boer  War  and  the 
equally  famous  diamond  mines.  But  it  is  much  more 
for  it  is  packed  with  romance  and  reality.  Here  came 
Cecil  Rhodes  in  his  early  manhood  and  pulled  off  the 
biggest  business  deal  of  his  life;  here  you  find  the  first 
milepost  that  the  American  mining  engineer  set  up  in 
the  mineral  development  of  Africa:  here  is  produced 
in  greater  quantities  than  in  any  other  place  in  the  world 
the  glittering  jewel  that  vanity  and  avarice  set  their 
heart  upon. 

Kimberley  is  one  of  the  most  unique  of  all  the  treas- 


78  AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

lire  cities.  It  is  practically  built  on  a  diamond  mine  in 
the  same  way  that  Johannesburg  rests  upon  a  gold 
excavation.  When  the  great  diamond  rush  of  the 
seventies  overwhelmed  the  Vaal  and  Orange  River  re- 
gions, what  is  now  the  Kimberley  section  was  a  rocky 
plain  with  a  few  Boer  farms.  The  influx  of  fortune- 
hunters  dotted  the  area  with  tents  and  diggings.  Today 
a  thriving  city  covers  it  and  the  wealth  produced  —  the 
diamond  output  is  ninety  per  cent  of  the  world  supply 
—  exceeds  in  value  that  of  a  big  manufacturing  com- 
munity in  the  United  States. 

At  Kimberley  you  touch  the  intimate  life  of  Rhodes. 
He  arrived  in  1872  from  Natal,  where  he  had  gone  to 
retrieve  his  health  on  a  farm.  The  moment  he  staked 
out  a  claim  he  began  a  remarkable  career.  In  his  early 
Kimberley  days  he  did  a  characteristic  thing.  He  left 
his  claims  each  year  to  attend  lectures  at  Oxford  where 
he  got  his  degree  in  1881,  after  almost  continuous  com- 
muting between  England  and  Africa.  Hence  the 
Rhodes  Scholarship  at  Oxford  created  by  his  remarkable 
will.  History  contains  no  more  striking  contrast  per- 
haps than  the  spectacle  of  this  tall  curly-haired  boy  with 
the  Caesar-like  face  studying  a  Greek  book  while  he 
managed  a  diamond-washing  machine  with  his  foot. 

Rhodes  developed  the  mines  known  as  the  DeBeers 
group.  His  great  rival  was  Barney  Bamato,  who  gave 
African  finance  the  same  erratic  and  picturesque  tradi- 
tion that  the  Pittsburgh  millionaires  brought  to  Ameri- 
can finance.  His  real  name  was  Barnett  Isaacs.  After 
kicking  about  the  streets  of  the  East  End  of  London 
he  became  a  music  hall  performer  under  the  name  by 
which  he  is  known  to  business  history.  The  diamond 
rush  lured  him  to  Kimberley,  where  he  displayed  the 
resource  and  ingenuity  that  led  to  his  organization  of 


"CAPE-TO-CAIRO"  79 

the  Central  mine  interests  which  grouped  around  the 
Kimberley  Mine. 

A  bitter  competition  developed  between  the  Rhodes 
and  Barnato  groups.  Kimberley  alternated  between 
boom  and  bankruptcy.  The  genius  of  diamond  mining 
lies  in  tempering  output  to  demand.  Rhodes  realized 
that  indiscriminate  production  would  ruin  the  market, 
so  he  framed  up  the  deal  that  made  him  the  diamond 
dictator.  He  made  Barnato  an  offer  which  was  refused. 
With  the  aid  of  the  Rothschilds  in  London  Rhodes 
secretly  bought  out  the  French  interests  in  the  Barnato 
holdings  for  $6,000,000,  which  got  his  foot,  so  to  speak, 
in  the  doorway  of  the  opposition.  But  even  this  did  not 
give  him  a  working  wedge.  He  was  angling  with  other 
big  stockholders  and  required  some  weeks  time  to  con- 
summate the  deal.  Meanwhile  Barnato  accumulated  an 
immense  stock  of  diamonds  which  he  threatened  to  dump 
on  the  market  and  demoralize  the  price.  The  release  of 
these  stones  before  the  completion  of  Rhodes'  nego- 
tiations would  have  upset  his  whole  scheme  and  neutral- 
ized his  work  and  expense. 

He  arranged  a  meeting  with  Barnato  who  confronted 
him  with  the  pile  of  diamonds  that  he  was  about  to 
throw  on  the  market.  Rhodes,  so  the  story  goes,  took 
him  by  the  arm  and  said :  "Barney,  have  you  ever  seen 
a  bucketful  of  diamonds?  I  never  have.  I'll  make  a 
proposition  to  you.  If  these  diamonds  will  fill  a  bucket, 
I'll  take  them  all  from  you  at  your  own  price." 

Without  giving  his  rival  time  to  answer,  Rhodes  swept 
the  glittering  fortune  into  a  bucket  which  happened  to 
be  standing  nearby.  It  also  happened  that  the  stones 
did  not  fill  it.  This  incident  shows  the  extent  of  the 
Rhodes  resource,  for  a  man  at  Kimberly  told  me  that 
Rhodes  knew  beforehand  exactly  how  many  diamonds 


80  AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

Barnato  had  and  got  the  right  sized  bucket.  Rhodes 
immediately  strode  from  the  room,  got  the  time  he 
wanted  and  consummated  the  consolidation  which  made 
the  name  DeBeers  synonymous  with  the  diamond  out- 
put of  the  world.  One  trifling  feature  of  this  deal  was 
the  check  for  $26,000,000  which  Rhodes  gave  for  some 
of  the  Barnato  interests  acquired. 

The  deal  with  Barnato  illustrated  the  practical  oper- 
ation of  one  of  the  rules  which  guided  Rhodes'  business 
life.  He  once  said,  'Never  fight  with  a  man  if  you  can 
deal  with  him."  He  lived  up  to  this  maxim  even  with 
the  savage  Matabeles  from  whom  he  wrested  Rhodesia. 

Not  long  after  the  organization  of  the  diamond  trust 
Rhodes  gave  another  evidence  of  his  business  acumen. 
He  saw  that  the  disorganized  marketing  of  the  out- 
put would  lead  to  instability  of  price.  He  therefore 
formed  the  Diamond  Syndicate  in  London,  composed 
of  a  small  group  of  middlemen  who  distribute  the  whole 
Kimberley  output.  In  this  way  the  available  supply  is 
measured  solely  by  the  demand. 

Rhodes  had  a  peculiar  affection  for  Kimberley.  One 
reason  perhaps  was  that  it  represented  the  cornerstone 
of  his  fortune.  He  always  referred  to  the  mines  as 
his  "bread  and  cheese."  He  made  and  lost  vast  sums 
elsewhere  and  scattered  his  money  about  with  a  lavish 
hand.  The  diamond  mines  did  not  belie  their  name  and 
gave  him  a  constant  meal-ticket. 

In  Kimberley  he  made  some  of  the  friendships  that 
influenced  his  life.  First  and  foremost  among  them  was 
his  association  with  Doctor,  afterwards  Sir,  Starr 
Jameson,  the  hero  of  the  famous  Raid  and  a  romantic 
character  in  African  annals.  Jameson  came  to  Kimber- 
ley to  practice  medicine  in  1878.  No  less  intimate  was 
Rhodes'  life-long  attachment  for  Alfred  Beit,  who  ar- 


"CAPE-TO-CAIRO"  81 

rived  at  the  diamond  fields  from  Hamburg  in  1875  as  an 
obscure  buyer.  He  became  a  magnate  whose  opera- 
tions extended  to  three  continents.  Beit  was  the  balance 
wheel  in  the  Rhodes  financial  machine. 

The  diamond  mines  at  Kimberley  are  familiar  to 
most  readers.  They  differ  from  the  mines  in  German 
South- West  Africa  and  the  Congo  in  that  they  are 
deep  level  excavations.  The  Kimberley  mine,  for  ex- 
ample, goes  down  3,000  feet.  To  see  this  ahnost  gro- 
tesque gash  in  the  earth  is  to  get  the  impression  of  a 
very  small  Grand  Canyon  of  the  Colorado.  It  is  an 
awesome  and  terrifying  spectacle  for  it  is  shot  through 
with  green  and  brown  and  purple,  is  more  than  a  thou- 
sand feet  wide  at  the  top,  and  converges  to  a  visible 
point  a  thousand  feet  below.  You  feel  that  out  of  this 
color  and  depth  has  emerged  something  that  itself  in- 
carnates lure  and  mystery.  Even  in  its  source  the  dia- 
mond is  not  without  its  element  of  elusiveness. 

The  diamonds  at  Kimberley  are  found  in  a  blue  earth, 
technically  known  as  kimberlite  and  commonly  called 
"blue  ground."  This  is  exposed  to  sun  and  rain  for 
six  months,  after  which  it  is  shaken  down,  run  over  a 
grease  table  where  the  vaseline  catches  the  real  dia- 
monds, and  allows  the  other  matter  to  escape.  After 
a  boiling  process  it  is  the  "rough"  diamond. 

I  spent  a  day  in  the  Dutoitspan  Mine  where  I  saw 
thousands  of  Kaffirs  digging  away  at  the  precious  blue 
substance  soon  to  be  translated  into  the  gleaming  stone 
that  would  dangle  on  the  bosom  or  shine  from  the  finger 
of  some  woman  ten  thousand  miles  away.  I  got  an  evi- 
dence of  American  cinema  enterprise  on  this  occasion 
for  I  suddenly  debouched  on  a  wide  level  and  under 
the  flickering  lights  I  saw  a  Yankee  operator  turning 
the  crank  of  a  motion  picture  camera.    He  was  part  of 


82  AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

a  movie  outfit  getting  travel  pictures.  A  hundred  naked 
Zulus  stared  with  open-eyed  wonder  at  the  performance. 
When  the  flashlight  was  touched  off  they  ran  for  their 
lives. 

This  leads  me  to  the  conspicuous  part  that  Ameri- 
cans have  played  at  Kimberley.  Rhodes  had  great  con- 
fidence in  the  Americans,  and  employed  them  in 
various  capacities  that  ranged  from  introducing  Cal- 
ifornia fruits  into  South  Africa  and  Rhodesia  to  han- 
dling his  most  important  mining  interests.  When  some- 
one asked  him  why  he  engaged  so  many  he  answered, 
"They  are  so  thorough." 

First  among  the  Americans  that  Rhodes  brought  to 
Kimberley  was  Gardner  F.  Williams,  a  Michigander 
who  became  General  Manager  of  the  DeBeers  Company 
in  1887  and  upon  the  consolidation,  assumed  the  same 
post  with  the  united  interests.  He  developed  the 
mechanical  side  of  diamond  production  and  for  many 
years  held  what  was  perhaps  the  most  conspicuous  tech- 
nical and  administrative  post  in  the  industry.  He  re- 
tired in  favor  of  his  son,  Alpheus  Williams,  who  is  the 
present  General  Manager  of  all  the  diamond  mines  at 
Kimberley. 

A  little-known  American  had  a  vital  part  in  the 
siege  of  Kimberley.  Among  the  American  engineers 
who  rallied  round  Gardner  Williams  was  George 
Labram.  When  the  Boers  invested  the  town  they  had 
the  great  advantage  of  speriority  in  weight  of  metal. 
Thanks  to  Britain's  lack  of  preparedness,  Kimberley 
only  had  a  few  seven  pounders,  while  the  Boers  had 
"Long  Toms"  that  hurled  hundred  pounders.  At 
Rhodes'  suggestion  Labram  manufactured  a  big  gun 
capable  of  throwing  a  thirty-pound  shell  and  it  gave  the 
besiegers  a  big  and  destructive  surprise.  This  gun,  which 


"CAPE-TO-CAIRO"  83 

was  called  "Long  Cecil,"  was  built  and  booming  in  ex- 
actly twenty-eight  days.  Tragically  enough,  Labram 
was  killed  by  a  Boer  shell  while  shaving  in  his  room 
at  the  Grand  Hotel  exactly  a  week  after  the  first  dis- 
charge of  his  gun. 


IV 

THE  PART  that  Americans  had  in  the  develop- 
ment of  Kimberley  is  slight  compared  with 
their  participation  in  the  exploitation  of  the 
Rand  gold  mines.  Not  only  were  they  the  real  pioneers 
in  opening  up  this  greatest  of  all  gold  fields  but  they 
loomed  large  in  the  drama  of  the  Jameson  Raid.  One 
of  their  number,  John  Hays  Hammond,  the  best-known 
of  the  group,  was  sentenced  to  death  for  his  role  in  it. 
The  entire  technical  fabric  of  the  Rand  was  devised 
and  established  by  men  born,  and  who  had  the  greater 
part  of  their  experience,  in  the  United  States. 

The  capital  of  the  Rand  is  Johannesburg.  When 
you  ride  in  a  taxicab  down  its  broad,  well-paved  streets 
or  are  whirled  to  the  top  floor  of  one  of  its  skyscrapers, 
it  is  difficult  to  believe  that  thirty  years  ago  this  thriv- 
ing and  metropolitan  community  was  a  rocky  waste.  We 
are  accustomed  to  swift  civic  transformations  in  Amer- 
ica but  Johannesburg  surpasses  any  exhibit  that  we  can 
offer  in  this  line.  Once  called  "a  tin  town  with  a  gold 
cellar,"  it  has  the  atmosphere  of  a  continuous  cabaret 
with  a  jazz  band  going  all  the  time. 

No  thoroughly  acclimated  person  would  ever  think 
of  calling  Johannesburg  by  its  full  and  proper  name. 
Just  as  San  Francisco  is  contracted  into  "  'Frisco,"  so 
is  this  animated  joytown  called  "Joburg."  I  made  the 
mistake  of  dignifying  the  place  with  its  geographical 

84 


"CAPE-TO-CAIRO"  85 

title  when  I  innocently  remarked,  "Johannesburg  is  a 
live  place."  My  companion  looked  at  me  with  pity  — 
it  was  almost  sorrow,  and  replied, 

"We  think  that  'Joburg'  (strong  emphasis  on  'Jo- 
burg')  is  one  of  the  hottest  places  in  the  world." 

The  word  Rand  is  Dutch  for  ridge  or  reef.  Toward 
the  middle  of  the  eighties  the  first  mine  was  discovered 
on  what  is  the  present  site  of  Johannesburg.  The  origi- 
nal excavation  was  on  the  historic  place  known  as 
Witwatersrandj  which  means  White  Water  Reef.  Kim- 
berley  history  repeated  itself  for  the  gold  rush  to  the 
Transvaal  was  as  noisy  and  picturesque  as  the  dash 
on  the  diamond  fields.  It  exceeded  the  Klondike  move- 
ment because  for  one  thing  it  was  more  accessible  and 
in  the  second  place  there  were  no  really  adverse  cH- 
matic  conditions.  Thousands  died  in  the  snow  and  ice 
of  the  Yukon  trail  while  only  a  few  hundred  succumbed 
to  fever,  exposure  to  rain,  and  inadequate  food  on  the 
Rand.  It  resembled  the  gold  rush  to  California  in  1849 
more  than  any  other  similar  event. 

The  Rand  gold  fields,  which  in  1920  produced  half 
of  the  world's  gold,  are  embodied  in  a  reef  about  fifty 
miles  long  and  twenty  miles  wide.  All  the  mines  im- 
mediately in  and  about  Johannesburg  are  practically 
exhausted.  The  large  development  today  is  in  the  east- 
em  section.  People  do  everything  but  eat  gold;  in 
Johannesburg.  Cooks,  maids,  waiters,  bootblacks  — 
indeed  the  whole  population  —  are  interested,  or  at  some 
time  have  had  an  interest  in  a  gold  mine.  Some  his- 
toric shoestrings  have  become  golden  cables.  J.  B. 
Robinson,  for  example,  one  of  the  well-known  magnates, 
and  his  associates  converted  an  original  interest  of 
£12,000  into  £18,000,000.  This  Rand  history  sounds 
like  an  Aladdin  fairy  tale. 


86  AN   AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

What  concerns  us  principally,  however,  is  the  Ameri- 
can end  of  the  whole  show.  Hardly  were  the  first  Rand 
mines  uncovered  than  they  felt  the  influence  of  the 
American  technical  touch.  Among  the  first  of  our 
engineers  to  go  out  were  three  unusual  men,  Hennen 
Jennings,  H.  C.  Perkins  and  Captain  Thomas  Mein. 
Together  with  Hamilton  Smith,  another  noted  Ameri- 
can engineer  who  joined  them  later,  they  had  all  worked 
in  the  famous  El  Callao  gold  mine  in  Venezuela.  Subse- 
quently came  John  Hays  Hammond,  Charles  Butters, 
Victor  M.  Clement,  J.  S.  Curtis,  T.  H.  Leggett,  Pope 
Yeatman,  Fred  Hellman,  George  Webber,  H.  H. 
Webb,  and  Louis  Seymour.  These  men  were  the  big 
fellows.  They  marshalled  hundreds  of  subordinate  en- 
gineers, mechanics,  electricians,  mine  managers  and 
others  until  there  were  more  than  a  thousand  in  the 
field. 

This  was  the  group  contemporaneous  and  identified 
with  the  Jameson  Raid.  After  the  Boer  War  came 
what  might  be  called  the  second  generation  of  American 
engineers,  which  included  Sidney  Jennings,  a  brother 
of  Hennen,  W.  L.  Honnold,  Samuel  Thomson,  Ruel 
C.  Warriner,  W.  W.  Mein,  the  son  of  Capt.  Thomas 
Mein,  and  H.  C.  Behr. 

Why  this  American  invasion?  The  reason  was 
simple.  The  American  mining  engineer  of  the  eighties 
and  the  nineties  stood  in  a  class  by  himself.  Through 
the  gold  development  of  California  we  were  the  only 
people  who  had  produced  gold  mining  engineers  of  large 
and  varied  practical  experience.  When  Rhodes  and 
Barnato  (they  were  both  among  the  early  nine  mine- 
owners  in  the  Rand)  cast  about  for  capable  men  they 
naturally  picked  out  Americans.  Hammond,  for  ex- 
ample, was  brought  to  South  America  in  1893  by  Bar- 


"CAPE-TO-CAIRO"  87 

nato  and  after  six  months  with  him  went  over  to  Rhodes, 
with  whom  he  was  associated  both  in  the  Rand  and 
Rhodesia  until  1900. 

Not  only  did  Americans  create  the  whole  technical 
machine  but  one  of  them  —  Hennen  Jennings  —  really- 
saved  the  field.  The  first  mines  were  "outcrop,"  that 
is,  the  ore  literally  cropped  out  at  the  surface.  This  out- 
crop is  oxidized,  and  being  free,  is  easily  amalgamated 
with  mercury.  Deeper  down  in  the  earth  comes  the  un- 
oxidized  zone  which  continues  indefinitely.  The  iron 
pyrites  found  here  are  not  oxidized.  They  hold  the 
gold  so  tenaciously  that  they  are  not  amalgamable. 
They  must  therefore  be  abstracted  by  some  other  process 
than  with  mercury.  At  the  time  that  the  outcrop  in 
the  Rand  become  exhausted,  what  is  today  known  as 
the  "cyanide  process"  had  never  been  used  in  that  part 
of  the  world.  The  mine-owners  became  discouraged 
and  a  slimip  followed.  Jennings  had  heard  of  the 
cyanide  operation,  insisted  upon  its  introduction,  and 
it  not  only  retrieved  the  situation  but  has  become  an 
accepted  adjunct  of  gold  mining  the  world  over.  In 
the  same  way  Hammond  inaugurated  deep-level  mining 
when  many  of  the  owners  thought  the  field  was  ex- 
hausted because  the  outcrop  indications  had  disap- 
peared. 

These  Americans  in  the  Rand  made  the  mines  and 
they  also  made  history  as  their  part  in  the  Jameson 
Raid  showed.  Perhaps  a  word  about  the  Reform  move- 
ment which  ended  in  the  Raid  is  permissible  here.  It 
grew  out  of  the  oppression  of  the  Uitlander  —  the  alien 
—  by  the  Transvaal  Government  animated  by  Kruger, 
the  President.  Although  these  outsiders,  principally 
English  and  Americans,  outnumbered  the  Boers  three 
to  one,  they  were  deprived  of  the  rights  of  citizenship. 


88  AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

The  Reformers  organized  an  armed  campaign  to  cap- 
ture Kruger  and  hold  him  as  a  hostage  until  they  could 
obtain  their  rights.  The  guns  and  ammunition  were 
smuggled  in  from  Kimberley  as  "hardware"  under  the 
supervision  of  Gardner  Williams.  It  was  easy  to  bring 
the  munitions  as  far  as  Kimberley.  The  Boers  set  up 
such  a  careful  watch  on  the  Transvaal  border,  how- 
ever, that  every  subterfuge  had  to  be  employed  to  get 
them  across. 

Dr.  Jameson,  who  at  that  time  was  Administrator  of 
Southern  Rhodesia,  had  a  force  of  Rhodesian  police  on 
the  Transvaal  border  ready  to  come  to  the  assistance 
of  the  Committee  if  necessary.  The  understanding  was 
that  Jameson  should  not  invade  the  Transvaal  until  he 
was  needed.  His  impetuosity  spoiled  the  scheme.  In- 
stead of  waiting  until  the  Committee  was  properly 
armed  and  had  seized  Kruger,  he  suddenly  crossed  the 
border  with  his  forces.  The  Raid  was  a  fizzle  and  the 
commander  and  all  his  men  were  captured  by  the  Boers. 
This  abortive  attempt  was  the  real  prelude  to  the  Boer 
War,  which  came  four  years  later. 

Most  Americans  who  have  read  about  this  episode 
believe  that  John  Hays  Hammond  was  the  only  coun- 
tryman of  theirs  in  it.  This  was  because  he  had  a  leading 
and  spectacular  part  and  was  one  of  the  four  ringlead- 
ers sentenced  to  death.  He  afterwards  escaped  by  the 
payment  of  a  fine  of  $125,000.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
four  other  prominent  American  mining  engineers  were 
up  to  their  necks  in  the  reform  movement  and  got  long 
terms  in  prison.  They  were  Capt.  Thomas  Mein,  J.  S. 
Curtis,  Victor  M.  Clement  and  Charles  Butters.  They 
obtained  their  freedom  by  the  payment  of  fines  of 
$10,000  each.  This  whole  enterprise  netted  Kruger 
something  like  $2,000,000  in  cash. 


"CAPE-TO-CAIRO"  89 

The  Jameson  Raid  did  more  than  enrich  old  Kruger's 
coffers  and  bring  the  American  engineers  in  the  Rand 
to  the  fore.  Indirectly  it  blocked  a  German  scheme 
that  might  have  played  havoc  in  Africa  the  moment 
the  inevitable  Great  War  broke.  If  the  Boer  War  had 
not  developed  in  1899  it  is  altogether  likely  that,  judg- 
ing from  her  whole  campaign  of  world-wide  interfer- 
ence, Germany  would  have  arranged  so  that  it  should 
break  out  in  1914.  In  this  unhappy  event  she  could 
have  struck  a  death  blow  at  England  in  South  Africa 
because  in  the  years  between  the  Boer  War  and  1914 
she  created  close-knit  colonial  organizations  in  South- 
West  and  Eeast  Africa;  built  stragetic  railways;  armed 
and  drilled  thousands  of  natives,  and  could  have  in- 
vaded the  Cape  Colony  and  the  Transvaal. 

In  connection  with  the  Jameson  Raid  is  a  story  not 
without  interest.  Jameson  and  Rudyard  Kipling  hap- 
pened to  be  together  when  the  news  of  Roosevelt's  coup 
in  Panama  was  published.  The  author  read  it  first  and 
handed  the  paper  to  his  friend  with  the  question: "What 
do  you  think  of  it?" 

Jameson  glanced  at  the  article  and  then  replied 
somewhat  sadly,  "This  makes  the  Raid  look  like  thirty 
cents.'* 

I  cannot  leave  the  Rand  section  of  the  Union  of 
South  Africa  without  a  word  in  passing  about  Pretoria, 
the  administrative  capital,  which  is  only  an  hour's  jour- 
ney from  Johannesburg.  Here  you  still  see  the  old  house 
where  Kruger  lived.  It  was  the  throne  of  a  copper- 
riveted  autocracy.  No  modem  head  of  a  country  ever 
wielded  such  a  despotic  rule  as  this  psalm-singing  old 
Boer  whose  favorite  hour  for  receiving  visitors  was  at 
five  o'clock  in  the  morning,  when  he  had  his  first  cup 


90  AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

of  strong  coffee,  a  beverage  which  he  continued  to  con- 
sume throughout  the  day. 

The  most  striking  feature  of  the  country  around 
Pretoria  is  the  Premier  diamond  mine,  twenty-five  miles 
east  of  the  town  and  the  world's  greatest  single  treasure- 
trove.  The  mines  at  Kimberley  together  constitute  the 
largest  of  all  diamond  fields  but  the  Premier  Mine  is 
the  biggest  single  mine  anjnvhere.  It  produces  as  much 
as  the  four  largest  Kimberley  mines  combined,  and 
contributes  eighteen  per  cent  of  the  yearly  output 
allotted  to  the  Diamond  Syndicate. 

It  was  discovered  by  Thomas  M.  CuUinan,  who 
bought  the  site  from  a  Boer  farmer  for  $250,000.  The 
land  originally  cost  this  farmer  $2,500.  The  mine  has 
already  produced  more  than  five  hundred  times  what 
Cullinan  paid  for  it  and  the  surface  has  scarcely  been 
scraped.  You  can  see  the  natives  working  in  its  two 
huge  holes  which  are  not  more  than  six  hundred  feet 
deep.  It  is  still  an  open  mine.  In  the  Premier  Mine 
was  found  the  Cullinan  diamond,  the  largest  ever  dis- 
covered and  which  made  the  Koh-i-noor  and  all  other 
fabled  gems  look  like  small  pebbles.  It  weighed  3,200 
karats  and  was  insured  for  $2,500,000  when  it  was  sent 
to  England  to  be  presented  to  King  Edward.  The 
Koh-i-noor,  by  the  way,  which  was  found  in  India  only 
weighs  186  karats. 


No  ATTEMPT  at  an  analysis  of  South  Africa 
would  be  complete  without  some  reference  to 
the  native  problem,  the  one  discordant  note  in 
the  economic  and  productive  scheme.  The  race  question, 
as  the  Smuts  dilemma  showed,  lies  at  the  root  of  all 
South  African  trouble.  But  the  racial  conflict  between 
Briton  and  Boer  is  almost  entirely  political  and  in  no 
way  threatens  the  commercial  integrity.  Both  the 
Dutchman  and  the  Englishman  agree  on  the  whole 
larger  proposition  and  the  necessity  of  settling  once 
and  for  all  a  trouble  that  carries  with  it  the  danger  of 
sporadic  outbreak  or  worse.  Now  we  come  to  the  whole 
irritating  labor  trouble  which  has  neither  color,  caste, 
nor  creed,  or  geographical  line. 

First  let  me  bring  the  South  African  color  problem 
home  to  America.  In  the  United  States  the  whites  out- 
number the  blacks  roughly  ten  to  one.  Our  coloured 
population  represents  the  evolution  of  the  one-time  Afri- 
can slave  through  various  generations  into  a  peaceful, 
law-abiding,  and  useful  social  unit.  The  Southern  "out- 
rage" is  the  rare  exception.  We  have  produced  a  Fred- 
erick Douglass  and  a  Booker  Washington.  Our  Negro 
is  a  Christian,  fills  high  posts,  and  invades  the  pro- 
fessions. 

In  South  Africa  the  reverse  is  true.  To  begin  with, 
the  natives  outnumber  the  whites  four  and  one-half  to 

91 


92  AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

one  —  in  Rhodesia  they  are  twenty  to  one  —  and  they 
are  increasing  at  a  much  greater  rate  than  the  Euro- 
peans. Moreover,  the  native  population  draws  on  half 
a  dozen  races,  including  the  Zulus,  Kaflfirs,  Hottentots 
and  Basutos.  These  Negroes  represent  an  almost  primi- 
tive stage  of  development.  They  are  mainly  heathens 
and  a  prey  to  savagery  and  superstition.  The  Cape 
Colony  is  the  only  one  that  permits  the  black  man  to 
go  to  school  or  become  a  skilled  artisan.  Elsewhere  the 
white  retains  his  monopoly  on  the  crafts  and  at  the 
same  time  refuses  to  do  any  labour  that  a  Negro  can 
perform.  Hence  the  great  need  of  white  immigration 
into  the  Union.  The  big  task,  therefore,  is  to  secure 
adequate  work  for  the  Negro  without  permitting  him  to 
gain  an  advantage  through  it. 

It  follows  that  the  moment  the  Kaffir  becomes  effi- 
cient and  picks  up  a  smattering  of  education  he  begins 
to  think  about  his  position  and  unrest  is  fomented.  It 
makes  him  unstable  as  an  employee,  as  the  constant 
desertions  from  work  show.  The  only  way  that  the  gold 
and  diamond  mines  keep  their  thousands  of  recruited 
native  workers  is  to  confine  them  in  compounds.  The 
ordinary  labourer  has  no  such  restrictions  and  he  is 
here  today  and  gone  tomorrow. 

It  is  not  surprising  to  discover  that  in  a  country 
teeming  with  blacks  there  are  really  no  good  servants, 
a  condition  with  which  the  American  housewife  can 
heartily  sympathize.  Before  I  went  to  Africa  nearly 
every  woman  I  knew  asked  me  to  bring  her  back  a 
diamond  and  a  cook.  They  were  much  more  concerned 
about  the  cook  than  the  diamond.  Had  I  kept  every 
promise  that  I  made  affecting  this  human  jewel,  I 
would  have  had  to  charter  a  ship  to  convey  them.  The 
only  decent  servant  I  had  in  Africa  was  a  near-savage 


"CAPE-TO-CAIRO"  93 

in  the  Congo,  a  sad  commentary  on  domestic  service 
conditions. 

The  one  class  of  stable  servants  in  the  Colony  are 
the  "Cape  Boys,"  as  they  are  called.  They  are  the 
coloured  offspring  of  a  European  and  a  Hottentot  or  a 
Malay  and  are  of  all  shades,  from  a  darkish  brown  to 
a  mere  tinge.  They  dislike  being  called  "niggers." 
The  first  time  I  saw  these  Cape  Boys  was  in  France  dur- 
ing the  war.  South  Africa  sent  over  thousands  of  them 
to  recruit  the  labour  battalions  and  they  did  excellent 
work  as  teamsters  and  in  other  capacities.  The  Cape 
Boy,  however,  is  the  exception  to  the  native  rule 
throughout  the  Union,  which  means  that  most  native 
labour  is  unstable  and  discontented. 

Not  only  is  the  South  African  native  a  menace  to 
economic  expansion  but  he  is  likewise  something  of  a 
physical  danger.  In  towns  like  Pretoria  and  Johannes- 
burg there  is  a  considerable  feeling  of  insecurity. 
Women  shrink  from  being  left  alone  with  their  ser- 
vants and  are  filled  with  apprehension  while  their  little 
ones  are  out  under  black  custodianship.  The  one  native 
servant,  aside  from  some  of  the  Cape  Boys,  who  has 
demonstrated  absolute  fidelity,  is  the  Zulu  whom  you 
see  in  largest  numbers  in  Natal.  He  is  still  a  proud  and 
kingly-looking  person  and  he  carried  with  him  a  hint 
of  the  vanished  greatness  of  his  race.  Perhaps  one 
reason  why  he  is  safe  and  sane  reposes  in  his  recollec- 
tion of  the  repeated  bitter  and  bloody  defeats  at  the 
hands  of  the  white  men.  Yet  the  Zulu  was  in  armed 
insurrection  in  Natal  in  the  nineties. 

South  Africa  enjoys  no  guarantee  of  immunity  from 
black  uprising  even  now  in  the  twentieth  century  when 
the  world  uses  the  aeroplane  and  the  wireless.  During 
the  past  thirty  years  there  have  been  outbreaks  through- 


94  AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

out  the  African  continent.  As  recently  as  1915  a  fanati- 
cal form  of  Ethiopianism  broke  out  in  Nyassaland  which 
lies  north-east  of  Rhodesia,  under  the  sponsorship  of 
John  Chilembwe,  a  negro  preacher  who  had  been  edu- 
cated in  the  United  States.  The  natives  rose,  killed  a 
number  of  white  men  and  carried  off  the  women.  Of 
course,  it  was  sunmiarily  put  down  and  the  leaders 
executed.    But  the  incident  was  significant. 

Prester  John,  whose  story  is  familiar  to  readers  of 
John  Buchan's  fine  romance  of  the  same  name,  still  has 
disciples.  Like  Chilembwe  he  was  a  preacher  who  had 
acquired  so-called  European  civilization.  He  dreamed 
of  an  Africa  for  the  blacks  and  took  his  inspiration  from 
the  old  kings  of  Abyssinia.  He  too  met  the  fate  of 
all  his  kind  but  his  spirit  goes  marching  on.  In  1919  a 
Pan- African  Congress  was  held  in  Paris  to  discuss  some 
plan  for  what  might  be  called  Pan-Ethiopianism.  The 
following  year  a  negro  convention  in  New  York  City 
advocated  that  all  Africa  should  be  converted  into  a 
black  republic. 

One  example  of  African  native  unrest  was  brought 
strikingly  to  my  personal  attention.  At  Capetown  I 
met  one  of  the  heads  of  a  large  Cape  Colony  school  for 
Negroes  which  is  conducted  under  religious  auspices. 
The  occasion  was  a  dinner  given  by  J.  X.  Merriman, 
the  Grand  Old  Man  of  the  Cape  Colony.  This  par- 
ticular educator  spoke  with  glowing  enthusiasm  about 
this  institution  and  dwelt  particularly  upon  the  evolu- 
tion that  was  being  accomplished.  He  gave  me  a  press- 
ing invitation  to  visit  it.  He  happened  to  be  on  the  train 
that  I  took  to  Kimberley,  which  was  also  the  first  stage 
of  his  journey  home  and  he  talked  some  more  about  the 
great  work  the  school  was  doing. 

When  I  reached  Kimberley  the  first  item  of  news 


"CAPE-TO-CAIRO"  95 

that  I  read  in  the  local  paper  was  an  account  of  an  up- 
rising in  the  school.  Hundreds  of  native  students  re- 
belled at  the  quality  of  food  they  were  getting  and  went 
on  the  rampage.  They  destroyed  the  power-plant  and 
wrecked  several  of  the  buildings.  The  constabulary  had 
to  be  called  out  to  restore  order. 

In  many  respects  most  Central  and  South  African 
Negroes  never  really  lose  the  primitive  in  them  despite 
the  claims  of  uplifters  and  sentimentalists.  Actual  con- 
tact is  a  disillusioning  thing.  I  heard  of  a  concrete 
case  when  I  was  in  the  Belgian  Congo.  A  Belgian 
judge  at  a  post  up  the  Kasai  River  acquired  an  intelli- 
gent Baluba  boy.  All  personal  servants  in  Africa  are 
called  "boys."  This  particular  native  learned  French, 
acquired  European  clothes  and  became  a  model  ser- 
vant. When  the  judge  went  home  to  Belgium  on  leave 
he  took  the  boy  along.  He  decided  to  stay  longer  than 
he  expected  and  sent  the  negro  back  to  the  Congo.  No 
sooner  did  the  boy  get  back  to  his  native  heath  than  he 
sold  his  European  clothes,  put  on  a  loin  cloth,  and 
squatted  on  the  ground  when  he  ate,  precisely  like 
his  savage  brethren.  It  is  a  typical  case,  and  merely 
shows  that  a  great  deal  of  so-called  black-acquired  civi- 
lization in  Africa  falls  away  with  the  garb  of  civili- 
zation. 

The  only  African  blacks  who  have  really  assimilated 
the  civilizing  influence  so  far  as  my  personal  observa- 
tion goes  are  those  of  the  West  Coast.  Some  of  the 
inhabitants  of  Sierra  Leone  will  illustrate  what  I  mean. 
Scores  have  gone  to  Oxford  and  Cambridge  and  have 
become  doctors,  lawyers  and  competent  civil  servants. 
They  resemble  the  American  Negro  more  than  any 
others  in  Africa.  This  parallel  even  goes  to  their  fond- 
ness for  using  big  words.  I  saw  hundreds  of  them  hold- 


96  AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

ing  down  important  clerical  positions  in  the  Belgian 
Congo  where  they  are  known  as  "Coast-men,"  because 
they  come  from  the  West  Coast. 

I  had  an  amusing  experience  with  one  when  I  was 
on  my  way  out  of  the  Congo  jungle.  I  sent  a  message 
by  him  to  the  captain  of  the  little  steamboat  that  took 
me  up  and  down  the  Kasai  River.  In  this  message  I 
asked  that  the  vessel  be  made  ready  for  immediate  de- 
parture. The  Coast-man,  whose  name  was  Wilson  — 
they  all  have  English  names  and  speak  English  fluently 
—  came  back  and  said : 

"I  have  conveyed  your  expressed  desire  to  leave  im- 
mediately to  the  captain  of  your  boat.  He  only  returns 
a  verbal  acquiescence  but  I  assure  you  that  he  will  leave 
nothing  imdone  to  facilitate  your  speedy  departure." 

He  said  all  this  with  such  a  solemn  and  sober  face  that 
you  would  have  thought  the  whole  destiny  of  the  British 
Empire  depended  upon  the  elaborateness  of  his  ut- 
terance. 

To  return  to  the  matter  of  unrest,  all  the  concrete 
happenings  that  I  have  related  show  that  the  authority 
of  the  white  man  in  Africa  is  still  resented  by  the  natives. 
It  serves  to  emphasize  what  Mr.  Lothrop  Stoddard, 
an  eminent  authority  on  this  subject,  so  aptly  calls  "the 
rising  tide  of  colour."  We  white  people  seldom  stop 
to  realize  how  overwhelmingly  we  are  outnumbered. 
Out  of  the  world  population  of  approximately  1,700,- 
000,000  persons  (I  am  using  Mr.  Stoddard's  figures), 
only  550,000,000  are  white. 

A  colour  conflict  is  improbable  but  by  no  means  im- 
possible. We  have  only  to  look  at  our  own  troubles 
with  the  Japanese  to  get  an  intimate  glimpse  of  what 
might  lurk  in  a  yellow  tidal  wave.  The  yellow  man 
humbled  Russia  in  the  Russo-Japanese  War  and  he 


"CAPE-TO-CAIRO"  97 

smashed  the  Germans  at  Kiao  Chow  in  the  Great  War. 
The  fact  that  he  was  permitted  to  fight  shoulder  to 
shoulder  with  the  white  man  has  only  added  to  his  cocki- 
ness as  we  have  discovered  in  CaUfornia. 

Remember  too  that  the  Germans  stirred  up  all  Islam 
in  their  mad  attempt  to  conquer  the  world.  The  Mo- 
hammedan has  not  forgotten  what  the  Teutonic  propa- 
gandists told  him  when  they  laid  the  cunning  train  of 
bad  feeling  that  precipitated  Turkey  into  the  Great 
War.  These  seeds  of  discord  are  bearing  fruit  in  many 
Near  Eastern  quarters.  One  result  is  that  a  British 
army  is  fighting  in  Mesopotamia  now.  A  Holy  War 
is  merely  the  full  brother  of  the  possible  War  of  Colour. 
In  East  Africa  the  Germans  used  thousands  of  native 
troops  against  the  British  and  Belgians.  The  blacks 
got  a  taste,  figuratively,  of  the  white  man's  blood  and 
it  did  his  system  no  good. 

Throughout  the  globe  there  are  150,000,000  blacks 
and  all  but  30,000,000  of  them  are  south  of  the  Sahara 
Desert  in  Africa.  They  lack  the  high  mental  develop- 
ment of  the  yellow  man  as  expressed  in  the  Japanese, 
but  even  brute  force  is  not  to  be  despised,  especially 
where  it  outnumbers  the  whites  to  the  extent  that  they 
do  in  South  Africa.  I  am  no  alarmist  and  I  do  not 
presume  to  say  that  there  will  be  serious  trouble.  I 
merely  present  these  facts  to  show  that  certainly  so  far 
as  affecting  production  and  economic  security  in  gen- 
eral is  concerned,  the  native  still  provides  a  vexing  and 
irritating  problem,  not  without  danger. 

The  Union  of  South  Africa  is  keenly  alive  to  this 
perplexing  native  situation.  Its  policy  is  what  might 
be  called  the  Direct  Rule,  in  which  the  whole  administra- 
tion of  the  country  is  in  the  hands  of  the  Europeans  and 
which  is  the  opposite  of  the  Indirect  Rule  of  India,  for 


08  AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

example,  which  recognizes  Rajahs  and  other  potentates 
and  which  permits  the  brown  man  to  hold  a  variety 
of  public  posts. 

The  Government  of  the  Cape  Colony  is  becoming 
convinced  that  Booker  Washington's  idea  is  the  sole 
salvation  of  the  race.  That  great  leader  maintained 
that  the  hope  for  the  Negro  in  the  United  States  and 
elsewhere  lay  in  the  training  of  his  hands.  Once  those 
hands  were  skilled  they  could  be  kept  out  of  mischief. 
I  recall  having  discussed  this  theory  one  night  with 
General  Smuts  at  Capetown  and  he  expressed  his  hearty 
approval  of  it. 

The  lamented  Botha  died  before  he  could  put  into 
operation  a  plan  which  held  out  the  promise  of  still 
another  kind  of  solution.  It  lay  in  the  soil.  He  con- 
tended that  an  area  of  forty  million  acres  should  be  set 
aside  for  the  natives,  where  many  could  work  out  their 
destinies  themselves.  While  this  plan  offered  the  oppor- 
tunity for  the  establishment  of  a  compact  and  perhaps 
dangerous  black  entity,  his  feeling  was  that  by  the 
avoidance  of  friction  with  the  whites  the  possibility  of 
trouble  would  be  minimized.  This  scheme  is  likely  to  be 
carried  out  by  Smuts. 

Since  the  Union  of  South  Africa  profited  by  the 
whirligig  of  war  to  the  extent  of  acquiring  German 
South- West  Africa  it  only  remains  to  speak  of  the  new 
map  of  Africa,  made  possible  by  the  Great  Conflict. 
Despite  the  return  of  Alsace-Lorraine  to  France  one 
fails  to  see  concrete  evidence  of  Germany's  defeat  in 
Europe.  Her  people  are  still  cocky  and  defiant.  There 
is  no  mistake  about  her  altered  condition  in  Africa. 
Her  flag  there  has  gone  into  the  discard  along  with  the 
wreck  of  militarism.  The  immense  territory  that  she 
acquired  principally  by  browbeating  is  lost,  down  to 
the  last  square  mile. 


"CAPE-TO-CAIRO"  99 

Up  to  1884  Germany  did  not  own  an  inch  of  African 
soil.  Within  two  years  she  was  mistress  of  more  than 
a  million  square  miles.  Analyze  her  whole  performance 
on  the  continent  and  a  definite  cause  of  the  World  War 
is  discovered.  It  is  part  of  an  international  conspiracy 
studded  with  astonishing  details. 

Africa  was  a  definite  means  to  world  conquest.  Ger- 
many knew  of  her  vast  undeveloped  wealth.  It  is  now 
no  secret  that  her  plan  was  to  annex  the  greater  part  of 
French,  Belgian,  Italian  and  Portuguese  Africa  in  the 
event  that  she  won.  The  Berlin-to-Bagdad  Railway 
would  have  hitched  up  the  late  Teutonic  Empire  with 
the  Near  East  and  made  it  easy  to  link  the  African 
domain  with  this  intermediary  through  the  Turkish  do- 
minions. Here  was  an  imposing  program  with  many 
advantages.  For  one  thing  it  would  have  given  Ger- 
many an  untold  store  of  raw  materials  and  it  would 
also  have  put  her  into  a  position  to  dictate  to  Southern 
Asia  and  even  South  America. 

The  methods  that  Germany  adopted  to  acquire  her 
African  possessions  were  peculiarly  typical.  Like  the 
madness  that  plunged  her  into  a  struggle  with  civiliza- 
tion they  were  her  own  undoing.  Into  a  continent 
whose  middle  name,  so  far  as  colonization  goes,  is  in- 
trigue she  fitted  perfectly.  Practically  every  German 
colony  in  Africa  represented  the  triumph  of  "butting 
in"  or  intimidation.  The  Kaiser  That  Was  regarded 
himself  as  the  mentor,  and  sought  to  recast  continents 
in  the  same  grand  way  that  he  lectured  his  minions. 

The  first  German  colony  in  Africa  was  German 
South- West,  as  it  was  called  for  short,  and  grew  out  of  a 
deal  made  between  a  Bremen  merchant  and  a  native 
chief.  On  the  strength  of  this  Bismarck  pinched  out  an 
area  almost  as  big  as  British  East  Africa.     Before 


100         AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

twelve  months  had  passed  the  German  flag  flew  over 
what  came  to  be  known  as  German  East  Africa,  and 
also  over  Togoland  and  the  The  Cameroons  on  the 
West  Coast. 

Germany  really  had  no  right  to  invade  any  of  this 
country  but  she  was  developing  into  a  strong  military 
power  and  rather  than  have  trouble,  the  other  nations 
acquiesced.  Once  intrenched,  she  started  her  usual  in- 
terference. The  prize  mischief-maker  of  the  universe, 
she  began  to  stir  up  trouble  in  every  quarter.  She  em- 
broiled the  French  at  Agadir  and  got  into  a  snarl  with 
Portugal  over  Angola. 

The  Kaiser's  experience  with  Kruger  is  typical. 
When  the  Jameson  Raid  petered  out  William  Hohen- 
zollern  sent  the  dictator  of  the  Transvaal  a  telegram  of 
congratulation.  The  old  Boer  immediately  regarded 
him  as  an  ally  and  counted  on  his  aid  when  the  Boer 
War  started.  Instead,  he  got  the  double-cross  after 
he  had  sent  his  ultimatum  to  England.  At  that  time 
the  Kaiser  warily  side-stepped  an  entanglement  with 
Britain  for  the  reason  that  she  was  too  useful. 

It  is  now  evident  that  a  large  part  of  the  Congo  atroc- 
ity was  a  German  scheme.  The  head  and  front  of  the 
expose  movement  was  Sir  Roger  Casement  of  London. 
He  sought  to  foment  a  German-financed  revolution  in 
Ireland  and  was  hanged  as  a  traitor  in  the  Tower. 

Behind  this  atrocity  crusade  was  just  another  evi- 
dence of  the  German  desire  to  control  Africa.  By 
rousing  the  world  against  Belgium,  Germany  expected 
to  bring  auother  Berlin  Congress,  which  would  be  ex- 
pected to  give  her  the  stewardship  of  the  Belgian  Congo. 
The  result  would  have  been  a  German  belt  across 
Africa  from  the  Indian  to  the  Atlantic  Oceans.  She 
could  thus  have  had  England  and  France  at  a  disad- 


"CAPE-TO-CAIRO"  101 

vantage  on  the  north,  and  England  and  Portugal  where 
she  wanted  them,  to  the  south.  Hence  the  Great  War 
was  not  so  much  a  matter  of  German  meddling  in  the 
Balkans  as  it  was  her  persistent  manipulation  of  other 
nations'  affairs  in  Africa.  She  was  playing  "freeze- 
out"  on  a  stupendous  scale.  You  can  see  why  Germany 
was  so  much  opposed  to  the  Cape-to-Cairo  Route.  It 
interfered  with  her  ambitions  and  provided  a  constant 
irritant  to  her  "benevolent"  plans. 

So  much  for  the  war  end.  Turn  to  the  peace  aspect. 
With  Germany  eliminated  from  the  African  scheme  the 
whole  region  can  enter  upon  a  harmonious  development. 
More  than  this,  the  fact  that  she  is  now  deprived  of 
colonies  prevents  her  from  recovering  the  world-wide 
economic  authority  she  commanded  before  the  war.  A 
congested  population  allows  her  no  more  elbow  room  at 
home.  Before  she  went  mad  her  whole  hope  of  the 
future  lay  in  a  colonization  where  her  flag  could  fly  in 
public,  and  in  a  penetration  which  cunningly  masked  the 
German  hand.  The  world  is  now  wise  to  the  latter  pro- 
cedure. 

The  new  colour  scheme  of  the  African  map  may  now 
be  disclosed.  The  Union  of  South  Africa,  as  you  have 
seen,  has  taken  over  German  South- West  Africa ;  Great 
Britain  has  assumed  the  control  of  all  German  East 
Africa  with  the  exception  of  Ruanda  and  Urundu, 
which  have  become  part  of  the  Belian  Congo.  Togoland 
is  divided  between  France  and  Britain,  while  the  greater 
part  of  The  Cameroons  is  merged  into  the  Lower  French 
West  African  possessions  of  which  the  French  Congo 
is  the  principal  one.  Britain  gets  the  Cameroon  Moun- 
tains. 

The  one-time  Dark  Continent  remains  dark  only  for 
Germany. 


2 

o 


Ill  —  RHODES   AND   RHODESIA 


FOR  fifty-eight  hours  the  train  from  Johannes- 
burg had  travelled  steadily  northward,  past 
Mafeking  and  on  through  the  apparently  end- 
less stretches  of  Bechuanaland.  Alternately  frozen  and 
baked,  I  had  swallowed  enough  dust  to  stock  a  small- 
sized  desert.  Dawn  of  the  third  day  broke  and  with 
it  came  a  sharp  rap  on  my  compartment  door.  I  had 
been  dreaming  of  a  warm  bath  and  a  joltless  life  when 
I  was  rudely  restored  to  reality.  The  car  was  stationary 
and  a  blanketed  Matabele,  his  teeth  chattering  with  the 
cold,  peered  in  at  the  window. 

"What  is  it?"  I  asked. 

"You  are  in  Rhodesia  and  I  want  to  know  who  you 
are,"  boomed  a  voice  out  in  the  corridor. 

I  opened  the  door  and  a  tall,  rangy,  bronzed  man  — 
the  immigration  inspector  —  stepped  inside.  He  looked 
like  a  cross  between  an  Arizona  cowboy  and  an  Aus- 
tralian overseas  soldier.  When  I  proved  to  his  satis- 
faction that  I  was  neither  Bolshevik  nor  Boche  he  de- 
parted with  the  remark :  'We've  got  to  keep  a  watch  on 
the  people  who  come  into  this  country." 

Such  was  my  introduction  to  Rhodesia,  where  the 
limousine  and  the  ox-team  compete  for  right  of  way  on 
the  veldt  and  the  'rickshaw  yields  to  the  motor-cycle  in 

103 


104         AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

the  town  streets.  Nowhere  in  the  world  can  you  find  a 
region  that  combines  to  such  vivid  and  picturesque  ex- 
tent the  romance  and  hardship  of  the  pioneer  age  with 
the  push  and  practicahty  of  today.  Here  existed  the 
"King  Solomon's  Mines"  of  Rider  Haggard's  fancy: 
here  the  modern  gold-seekers  of  fact  sought  the  treasures 
of  Ophir;  here  Nature  gives  an  awesome  manifestation 
of  her  power  in  the  Victoria  Falls. 

It  is  the  only  country  where  a  great  business  corpo- 
ration rules,  not  by  might  of  money  but  by  chartered 
authority.  Linked  with  that  rule  is  the  story  of  a  con- 
flict between  share-holder  and  settler  that  is  unique  in 
the  history  of  colonization.  It  is  the  now-familiar  and 
well-nigh  universal  struggle  for  self-determination 
waged  in  this  instance  between  all-British  elements  and 
without  violence. 

All  the  way  from  Capetown  I  had  followed  the  trail 
of  Cecil  Rhodes,  which  like  the  man  himself,  is  distinct. 
It  is  not  the  succession  of  useless  and  conventional  monu- 
ments reared  by  a  grateful  posterity.  Rather  it  is  ex- 
pressed in  terms  of  cities  and  a  permanent  industrial 
and  agricultural  advance.  "Living  he  was  the  land," 
and  dead,  his  imperious  and  constructive  spirit  goes 
marching  on.  The  Rhodes  impress  is  everywhere. 
Now  I  had  arrived  at  the  cap-stone  of  it  all,  the  domain 
that  bears  his  name  and  which  he  added  to  the  British 
Empire. 

Less  than  two  hours  after  the  immigration  inspector 
had  given  me  the  once-over  on  the  frontier  I  was  in 
Bulawayo,  metropolis  of  Rhodesia,  which  sprawls  over 
the  veldt  just  like  a  bustling  Kansas  community  spreads 
out  over  the  prairie.  It  is  definitely  American  in  energy 
and  atmosphere.  Save  for  the  near-naked  blacks  you 
could  almost  imagine  yourself  in  Idaho  or  Montana  back 
in  the  days  when  our  West  was  young. 


RHODES    AND    RHODESIA  105 

Before  that  first  day  ended  I  had  lunched  and  dined 
in  a  club  that  would  do  credit  to  Capetown  or  Johannes- 
burg; had  met  women  who  wore  French  frocks,  and  had 
heard  the  possibilities  of  the  section  acclaimed  by  a  dozen 
enthusiasts.  Everyone  in  Rhodesia  is  a  born  booster. 
Again  you  get  the  parallel  with  our  own  kind. 

To  the  average  American  reader  Rhodesia  is  merely 
a  name,  associated  with  the  midnight  raid  of  stealthy 
savage  and  all  the  terror  and  tragedy  of  the  white  man's 
burden  amid  the  wild  confines.  All  this  happened,  to 
be  sure,  but  it  is  part  of  the  past.  While  South  Africa 
still  wrestles  with  a  serious  native  problem,  Rhodesia 
has  settled  it  once  and  for  all.  It  would  be  impossible 
to  find  a  milder  lot  than  the  survivors  and  sons  of  the 
cruel  and  war-like  Lobengula  who  once  ruled  here  like 
a  despot  of  old.  His  tribesmen  —  the  Matabeles  — 
were  put  in  their  place  by  a  strong  hand  and  they  re- 
main put. 

Bulawayo  was  the  capital  of  Lobengula's  kingdom. 
The  word  means  "Place  of  Slaughter,"  and  it  did  not 
belie  the  name.  You  can  still  see  the  tree  under  which 
the  portly  potentate  sat  and  daily  dispensed  sanguinary 
judgment.  His  method  was  quite  simple.  If  anyone 
irritated  or  displeased  him  he  was  haled  up  "under  the 
greenwood"  and  sentenced  to  death.  If  gout  or  rheu- 
matism racked  the  royal  frame  the  chief  executed  the 
first  passerby  and  then  considered  the  source  of  the 
trouble  removed.  The  only  thing  that  really  departed 
was  the  head  of  the  innocent  victim.  Lobengula  had 
sixty-eight  wives,  which  may  account  for  some  of  his 
eccentricities.  Chaka,  the  famous  king  of  the  Zulus, 
whose  favourite  sport  was  murdering  his  sons  (he  feared 
a  rival  to  the  throne),  was  an  amateur  in  crime  along- 
side the  dusky  monarch  whom  the  British  suppressed, 


106         AN   AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

and  thereby  gained  what  is  now  the  most  prosperous 
part  of  Southern  Rhodesia. 

The  occupation  and  development  of  Rhodesia  are  so 
comparatively  recent —  (Rhodes  and  Dr.  Jameson 
were  fighting  the  Matabeles  at  Bulawayo  in  1896)  — 
that  any  account  of  the  country  must  at  the  outset  in- 
clude a  brief  historical  approach  to  the  time  of  my  visit 
last  May.  Probe  into  the  beginnings  of  any  African 
colony  and  you  immediately  uncover  intrigue  and  mili- 
tant imperialism.    Rhodesia  is  no  exception. 

For  ages  the  huge  continent  of  which  it  is  part  was 
veiled  behind  mystery  and  darkness.  The  northern  and 
southern  extremes  early  came  into  the  ken  of  the  ex- 
plorer and  after  him  the  builder.  So  too  with  most  of 
the  coast.  But  the  vast  central  belt,  skirted  by  the  arid 
reaches  of  Sahara  on  one  side  and  unknown  territory  on 
the  other,  defied  civilization  until  Livingstone,  Stanley, 
Speke,  and  Grant  blazed  the  way.  Then  began  the 
scramble  for  colonies. 

Early  in  the  eighties  more  than  one  European  power 
cast  covetous  glances  at  what  might  be  called  the  South 
Central  area.  Thanks  to  the  economic  foresight  of 
King  Leopold,  Belgium  had  secured  the  Congo.  Be- 
tween this  region  which  was  then  a  Free  State,  and  the 
Transvaal,  was  an  immense  and  unappropriated  coun- 
try, —  a  sort  of  no  man's  land,  rich  with  minerals,  teem- 
ing with  forests  and  peopled  by  savages.  Two 
territories,  Matabeleland,  ruled  by  Lobengula,  and 
Mashonaland,  inhabited  by  the  Mashonas,  who  were  to 
all  intents  and  purposes  vassals  to  Lobengula,  were  the 
prize  portions.  Another  immense  area  —  the  present 
British  protectorate  of  Bechuanaland  —  was  immedi- 
ately south  and  touched  the  Cape  Colony  and  the  Trans- 
vaal.   Portuguese  East  Africa  lay  to  the  east  but  the 


RHODES   AND   RHODESIA  107 

backbone  of  Africa  south  of  the  Congo  line  lay  ready- 
to  be  plucked  by  venturesome  hands. 

Nor  were  the  hands  lacking  for  the  enterprise.  Ger- 
many started  to  strengthen  the  network  of  conspiracy 
that  had  already  yielded  her  a  million  square  miles  of 
African  soil  and  she  was  reaching  out  for  more.  Con- 
trol of  Africa  meant  for  her  a  big  step  toward  world 
conquest.  Paul  Kruger,  President  of  the  Transvaal 
Republic,  which  touched  the  southern  edge  of  this  im- 
claimed  domain,  saw  in  it  the  logical  extension  of  his 
dominions. 

Down  at  Capetown  was  Rhodes,  dreaming  of  a 
Greater  Britain  and  determined  to  block  the  Kaiser  and 
Kruger.  It  was  largely  due  to  his  efforts  while  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Cape  Parliament  that  Britain  was  persuaded 
to  annex  Bechuanaland  as  a  Crown  Colony.  Fore- 
stalled here,  Kruger  was  determined  to  get  the  rest  of 
the  country  beyond  Bechuanaland  and  reaching  to  the 
southern  border  of  the  Congo.  His  emissaries  began 
to  dicker  with  chiefs  and  he  organized  an  expedition  to 
invade  the  territory.  Once  more  Rhodes  beat  him  to 
it,  this  time  in  history-making  fashion. 

Following  his  theory  that  it  is  better  to  deal  with 
a  man  than  fight  him,  he  sent  C.  D.  Rudd,  Rochfort 
Maguire,  and  F.  R.  ("Matabele")  Thompson  up  to  deal 
directly  with  Lobengula.  They  were  ideal  envoys  for 
Thompson  in  particular  knew  every  inch  of  the  country 
and  spoke  the  native  languages.  From  the  crafty  chief- 
tain they  obtained  a  blanket  concession  for  all  the  min- 
eral and  trading  rights  in  Matabeleland  for  £1,200  a 
year  and  one  thousand  rifles.  Rhodes  now  converted 
this  concession  into  a  commercial  and  colonizing  achieve- 
ment without  precedent  or  parallel.  It  became  the 
Magna  Charta  of  the  great  British  South  Africa  Com- 


108  AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

pany,  which  did  for  Africa  what  the  East  India  Com- 
pany did  for  India.  Counting  in  Bechuanaland,  it 
added  more  than  700,000  square  miles  to  the  British 
Empire. 

Like  the  historic  document  so  inseparably  associated 
with  the  glories  of  Clive  and  Hastings,  its  Charter 
shaped  the  destiny  of  the  empire  and  is  associated  with 
battle,  blood,  and  the  eventual  triumph  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  over  the  man  of  colour.  Other  chartered  com- 
panies have  wielded  autocratic  power  over  millions  of 
natives  but  the  royal  right  to  exist  and  operate,  bestowed 
by  Queen  Victoria  upon  the  British  South  Africa  Com- 
pany —  the  Chartered  Company  as  it  is  commonly 
known  —  was  the  first  that  ever  gave  a  corporation 
the  administrative  authority  over  a  politically  active 
country  with  a  white  population.  The  record  of  its  rule 
is  therefore  distinct  in  the  annals  of  Big  Business. 

It  was  in  1899  that  Rhodes  got  the  Charter.  In  his 
conception  of  the  Rhodesia  that  was  to  be  —  ( it  was 
first  called  Zambesia)  — he  had  two  distinct  purposes 
in  view.  One  was  the  larger  political  motive  which  was 
to  widen  the  Empire  and  keep  the  Germans  and  Boers 
from  annexing  territory  that  he  believed  should  be 
British.  This  was  Rhodes  the  imperialist  at  work.  The 
other  aspect  was  the  purely  commercial  side  and  re- 
vealed the  same  shrewdness  that  had  registered  so  suc- 
cessfully in  the  creation  of  the  Diamond  Trust  at  Kim- 
berley.    This  was  Rhodes  the  business  man  on  the  job. 

The  Charter  itself  was  a  visualization  of  the  Rhodes 
mind  and  it  matched  the  Cape-to-Cairo  project  in  big- 
ness of  vision.  It  gave  the  Company  the  right  to  acquire 
and  develop  land  everywhere,  to  engage  in  shipping,  to 
build  railway,  telegraph  and  telephone  lines,  to  establish 
banks,  to  operate  mines  and  irrigation  undertakings  and 


RHODES   AND   RHODESIA  109 

to  promote  commerce  and  manufacture  of  all  kinds. 
Nothing  was  overlooked.  It  meant  the  union  of  busi- 
ness and  statesmanship. 

Under  the  Charter  the  Company  was  given  adminis- 
trative control  of  an  area  larger  than  that  of  Great 
Britain,  France  and  Prussia.  It  divided  up  into  North- 
ern and  Southern  Rhodesia  with  the  Zambesi  River  as 
the  separating  line.  Northern  Rhodesia  remains  a 
sparsely  settled  country  —  there  are  only  2,000 
white  inhabitants  to  850,000  natives  —  and  the  only 
industry  of  importance  is  the  lead  and  zinc  development 
at  Broken  Hill.  Southern  Rhodesia,  where  there  are 
35,000  white  persons  and  800,000  natives,  has  been  the 
stronghold  of  Chartered  interests  and  the  battleground 
of  the  struggle  to  throw  off  corporate  control.  It  is 
the  Rhodesia  to  be  referred  to  henceforth  in  this  chapter 
without  prefix. 

The  Charter  is  perpetual  but  it  contained  a  provision 
that  at  the  end  of  twenty-five  years,  (1914)  and  at  the 
end  of  each  succeeding  ten  years,  the  Imperial  Govern- 
ment has  the  power  to  alter,  amend  or  rescind  the  instru- 
ment so  far  as  the  administration  of  Rhodesia  is  con- 
cerned. No  vital  change  in  the  original  document  has 
been  made  so  far,  but  by  the  time  the  next  cycle  expires 
in  1924  it  is  certain  that  the  Company  control  will  have 
ended  and  Rhodesia  will  either  be  a  part  of  the  Union 
of  South  Africa  or  a  self -determining  Colony. 

The  Company  is  directed  by  a  Board  of  Directors  in 
London,  but  no  director  resides  in  the  country  itself. 
Thus  at  the  beginning  the  fundamental  mistake  was 
made  in  attempting  to  run  an  immense  area  at  long 
range.  With  the  approval  of  the  Foreism  Office  the 
Company  names  an  Administrator,  —  the  present  one 
is  Sir  Dnmimond  Chaplin,  —  who,  like  the  average 


no         AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

Governor-General,  has  little  to  say.  The  Company  has 
exercised  a  copper-riveted  control  and  this  rigid  rule 
led  to  its  undoing,  as  you  will  see  later  on. 

The  original  capitalization  was  £1,000,000,  —  it  was 
afterwards  increased  to  £9,000,000,  —  but  it  is  only  a 
part  of  the  stream  of  pounds  sterling  that  has  been 
poured  into  the  country.  In  all  the  years  of  its  existence 
the  company  has  never  paid  a  dividend.  It  is  only  since 
1914  that  the  revenue  has  balanced  expenditures.  More 
than  40,000  shareholders  have  invested  in  the  enter- 
prise. Today  the  fate  of  the  country  rests  practically 
on  the  issue  between  the  interests  of  these  shareholders 
on  one  hand  and  the  35,000  inhabitants  on  the  other. 
Once  more  you  get  the  spectacle,  so  common  to  Ameri- 
can financial  history,  of  a  strongly  intrenched  vested 
interest  with  the  real  exploiter  or  the  consumer  arrayed 
against  it.  The  Company  rule  has  not  been  harsh  but 
it  has  been  animated  by  a  desire  to  make  a  profit.  The 
homesteaders  want  liberty  of  movement  without  handi- 
cap or  restraint.    An  irrenconcilable  conflict  ensued. 


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II 

WE  can  now  go  into  the  story  of  the  occupa- 
tion of  Rhodesia,  which  not  only  unfolds  a 
stirring  drama  of  development  but  discloses 
something  of  an  epic  of  adventure.  With  most  corpora- 
tions it  is  an  easy  matter  to  get  down  to  business  once 
a  charter  is  granted  .  It  is  only  necessary  to  subscribe 
stock  and  then  enter  upon  active  operations,  whether 
they  produce  soap,  razors  or  automobiles.  The  market 
is  established  for  the  product. 

With  the  British  South  Africa  Company  it  was  a  far 
different  and  infinitely  more  difficult  performance,  to 
translate  the  license  to  operate  into  action.  Matabele- 
land  and  Mashonaland  were  wild  regions  where  war-like 
tribes  roamed  or  fought  at  will.  There  were  no  roads. 
The  only  white  men  who  had  ventured  there  were  hunt- 
ers, traders,  and  concession  seekers.  Occupation  pre- 
ceded exploitation.  A  white  man's  civilization  had  to  be 
set  up  first.    The  rifle  and  the  hoe  went  in  together. 

In  June,  1890,  the  Pioneer  Column  entered.  Head- 
ing it  were  two  men  who  left  an  impress  upon  African 
romance.  One  was  Dr.  Jameson,  hero  of  the  Raid  and 
Rhodes'  most  intimate  friend.  The  first  time  I  met 
him  I  marvelled  that  this  slight,  bald,  mild  little  man 
should  have  been  the  central  figure  in  so  many  heroic 
exploits.  The  other  was  the  famous  hunter,  F.  C. 
Selous,  who  was  Roosevelt's  companion  in  British  East 
Africa.  Under  them  were  less  than  two  hundred  white 
men,  including  Captain  Heany,  an  American,  who  now 

111 


113         AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

invaded  a  country  where  Lobengula  had  an  army  of 
20,000  trained  fighters,  organized  into  impis —  (regi- 
ments) —  after  the  Zulu  fashion  and  in  every  respect  a 
formidable  force.  Although  the  old  chief  had  granted 
the  concession,  no  one  trusted  him  and  Jameson  and 
Selous  had  to  feel  their  way,  sleep  under  arms  every 
night,  and  build  highways  as  they  went. 

Upon  Lobengula's  suggestion  it  was  decided  to 
occupy  Mashonaland  first.  This  was  achieved  without 
any  trouble  and  the  British  flag  was  raised  on  what  is 
now  the  site  of  Salisbury,  the  capital  of  Southern 
Rhodesia.  Most  of  the  members  of  the  expedition  re- 
mained as  settlers,  and  farms  sprang  up  on  the  veldt. 
The  Company  had  to  organize  a  police  force  to  patrol 
the  land  and  keep  off  predatory  natives.  But  this 
was  purely  incidental  to  the  larger  troubles  that  now 
crowded  thick  and  fast.  In  the  South  the  Boers 
launched  an  expedition  to  occupy  Matabeleland  by  force 
and  it  had  to  be  headed  off.  To  the  east  rose  friction  with 
the  Portuguese  and  a  Rhodesian  contingent  was  com- 
pelled to  occupy  part  of  Portuguese  East  Africa  until 
the  boundary  line  was  adjusted. 

In  1893  came  the  first  of  the  events  that  made 
Rhodesia  a  storm  center.  A  Matabele  regiment  raided 
the  new  town  of  Victoria  and  killed  some  of  the  Com- 
pany's native  servants.  The  Matabeles  then  went  on  the 
warpath  and  Dr.  Jameson  took  the  field  against  them. 
For  five  weeks  a  bitter  struggle  raged.  It  ended  with 
the  defeat  and  disappearance  of  Lobengula  and  the 
occupation  of  Bulawayo  by  the  Company  forces.  This 
brought  the  whole  of  Matabeleland  under  the  direct 
authority  of  the  British  South  Africa  Company.  The 
campaign  cost  the  Company  $500,000. 

Three  years  of  peace  and  progress  followed.    Rail- 


RHODES    AND    RHODESIA  113 

way  construction  started  in  two  directions.  One  line 
was  headed  from  the  south  through  Bechuanaland  to- 
ward Bulawayo  and  another  from  Beira,  the  Indian 
Ocean  port  in  Portuguese  East  Africa,  westward  to- 
ward Salisbury.  Gold  mines  were  opened  and  farms 
extended.  At  the  end  of  1895  came  the  Jameson  Raid. 
Practically  the  entire  force  under  the  many-sided  Doc- 
tor was  recruited  from  the  Rhodesian  police  and  they 
were  all  captured  by  the  Boers.  Rhodesia  was  left 
defenceless. 

The  Matabeles  seized  this  moment  to  strike  again. 
Ever  since  the  defeat  of  1893  they  had  been  restless  and 
discontented.  Various  other  causes  contributed  to  the 
uprising.  One  is  peculiarly  typical  of  the  African 
savage.  An  outbreak  of  rinderpest,  a  disease  hitherto 
unknown  in  Southern  Africa,  came  down  from  the 
North  and  ravaged  the  cattle  herds.  In  order  to  check 
the  advance  of  the  pest  the  Government  established  a 
clear  belt  by  shooting  all  the  cattle  in  a  certain  area.  It 
was  impossible  for  the  Matabeles  to  understand  the  wis- 
dom of  this  procedure.  They  only  saw  it  as  an  outrage 
committed  by  the  white  men  on  their  property  for  they 
were  extensive  cattle  owners.  In  addition  many  died 
after  eating  infected  meat  and  they  also  held  the  settlers 
responsible.  The  net  result  of  it  all  was  a  sudden  descent 
upon  the  white  settlements  and  scores  of  white  men, 
women  and  children  were  slaughtered. 

This  time  the  operations  against  them  were  on  a  large 
scale.  The  present  Lord  Plumer,  who  commanded  the 
Fourth  British  Army  in  France  against  the  Germans,  — 
he  was  then  a  Lieutenant  Colonel  —  came  up  with  eight 
hundred  soldiers  and  drove  the  Matabeles  into  the  fast- 
nesses of  the  Matopos,  —  a  range  of  hills  fifty  miles  long 
and  more  than  twenty  wide.  Here  the  savages  took 
refuge  in  caves  and  could  not  be  driven  out. 


114         AN   AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

You  now  reach  one  of  the  remarkable  feats  in  the  life 
of  Cecil  Rhodes.  The  moment  that  the  second  Matabele 
war  began  he  hastened  northward  to  the  country  that 
bore  his  name.  As  soon  as  the  Matabeles  took  refuge 
in  the  Matopos  he  boldly  went  out  to  parley  with  them. 
With  three  unarmed  companions,  one  of  them  an  inter- 
preter, he  set  up  a  camp  in  the  wilds  and  sent  emissaries 
to  the  syndicate  of  the  chiefs  who  had  succeeded  Loben- 
gula.  He  had  become  Premier  of  the  Cape  Colony,  was 
head  of  the  great  DeBeers  Diamond  Syndicate,  and  had 
other  immense  interests.  He  was  also  Managing  Direc- 
tor of  the  British  South  Africa  Company  and  the  big- 
gest stockholder.  He  was  determined  to  protect  his 
interests  and  at  the  same  time  preserve  the  integrity 
of  the  country  that  he  loved  so  well. 

He  exposed  himself  every  night  to  raids  by  the  most 
blood-thirsty  savages  in  all  Africa.  Plumer's  com- 
mand was  camped  nearly  five  miles  away  but  Rhodes 
refused  a  guard. 

Rhodes  waited  patiently  and  his  perseverance  was 
eventually  rewarded.  One  by  one  the  chiefs  came  down 
from  the  hills  and  succumbed  to  the  persuasiveness  and 
personality  of  this  remarkable  man  who  could  deal  with 
wild  and  naked  warriors  as  successfully  as  he  could  dic- 
tate to  a  group  of  hard-headed  business  men.  After  two 
months  of  negotiating  the  Matabeles  were  appeased  and 
permanent  peace,  so  far  as  the  natives  were  concerned, 
dawned  in  Rhodesia.  After  his  feat  in  the  Matopos  the 
Matabeles  called  Rhodes  "The  Man  Who  Separated  the 
Fighting  Bulls."  It  was  during  this  period  in  Rhodesia 
that  Rhodes  discovered  the  place  which  he  called  "The 
View  of  the  World,"  and  where  his  remains  now  lie  in 
lonely  grandeur. 

At  Groote  Schuur,  the  Rhodes  house  near  Capetown, 


RHODES    AND    RHODESIA  115 

which  he  left  as  the  permanent  residence  of  the  Prime 
Minister  of  the  Union  of  South  Africa,  I  saw  a  prized 
souvenir  of  the  Matopos  conferences  with  the  Matabeles. 
On  the  wall  in  Rhodes'  bedroom  hangs  the  faded  picture 
of  an  old  and  shriveled  Matabele  woman.  When  I 
asked  General  Smuts  to  tell  me  who  she  was  he  replied : 
"That  is  the  woman  who  acted  as  the  chief  negotiator 
between  Rhodes  and  the  rebels."  I  afterwards  found 
out  that  she  was  one  of  the  wives  of  Umziligazi,  father 
of  Lobengula,  and  a  noted  Zulu  chieftain.  Rhodes 
never  forgot  the  service  she  rendered  him  and  caused  the 
photograph  of  her  to  be  taken. 

Following  the  last  Matabele  insurrection  the  Imperial 
Government  which  is  represented  in  Rhodesia  by  a  Resi- 
dent Commissioner  assimied  control  of  the  natives.  The 
Crown  was  possibly  guided  by  the  precedent  of  Natal, 
where  a  premature  Responsible  Government  was  fol- 
lowed by  two  Zulu  wars  which  well-nigh  wrecked  the 
province.  It  has  become  the  policy  of  the  Home  Gov- 
ernment not  to  permit  a  relatively  small  white  popula- 
tion to  rule  the  natives.  Whatever  the  influence, 
Rhodesia  has  had  no  trouble  with  the  natives  since 
Rhodes  made  the  peace  up  in  the  hills  of  the  Matopos. 

The  moment  that  the  war  of  force  ended,  another 
and  bloodless  war  of  words  began  and  it  has  continued 
ever  since.  I  mean  the  fight  for  self-government  that 
the  settlers  have  waged  against  the  Chartered  Company, 
This  brings  us  to  a  contest  that  contributes  a  significant 
and  little-known  chapter  to  the  whole  narrative  of  self- 
determination  among  the  small  peoples. 

Through  its  Charter  the  British  South  Africa  Com- 
pany was  able  to  fasten  a  copper-rivetted  rule  on 
Rhodesia.  Most  of  the  Directors  in  London,  with  the 
exception  of  men  like  Dr.  Jameson,  knew  very  little 


116         AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

about  the  country.  There  was  no  resident  Director  in 
Africa  and  the  members  of  the  Board  only  came  out 
just  before  the  elections.  The  Administrator  was 
always  a  Company  man  and  until  1899  his  administra- 
tive associates  in  the  field  were  the  members  of  an 
Executive  Council  nominated  by  the  Company.  Mean- 
while thousands  of  men  had  invested  their  fortunes  in 
the  land  and  the  inevitable  time  came  when  they  believed 
that  they  should  have  a  voice  in  the  conduct  of  its 
affairs. 

This  sentiment  became  so  widespread  that  in  1899 
the  country  was  given  a  Legislative  Council  which  for 
the  first  time  enabled  the  Rhodesians  to  elect  some  of 
their  own  people  to  office.  At  first  they  were  only 
allowed  three  members,  while  the  Company  nominated 
six  others.  This  always  gave  the  Chartered  interests 
a  majority.  Subsequently,  as  the  clamour  for  popular 
representation  grew,  the  number  of  elected  representa- 
tives was  increased  to  thirteen,  while  those  nominated 
by  Charter  remained  the  same.  To  get  a  majority 
imder  the  new  deal  it  was  only  necessary  for  the  Com- 
pany to  get  the  support  of  four  elected  members  and  on 
account  of  its  relatively  vast  commercial  interest  it  was 
usually  easy  to  do  this. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  find  an  exact  parallel  to  this 
situation.  In  America  we  have  had  many  conflicts  with 
what  our  campaign  orators  call  "Special  Privilege," 
an  institution  which  thrived  before  the  searchlight  of 
publicity  was  turned  on  corporate  control  and  prior  to 
the  time  when  fangs  were  put  into  the  stewardship  of 
railways.  These  contestants  were  sometimes  decided  at 
the  polls  with  varying  degrees  of  success.  Perhaps  the 
nearest  approach  to  the  Rhodesian  line-up  was  the  strug- 
gle of  the  California  wheat  growers  against  the  Southern 


RHODES    AND    RHODESIA  117 

Pacific  Railway,  which  Frank  Norris  dramatized  in  his 
book,  "The  Octopus." 

All  the  while  the  feeling  for  Responsible  Government 
in  Rhodesia  grew.  A  strong  group  which  opposed  the 
Chartered  regime  sprang  up.  At  the  beginning  of  the 
struggle  the  line  was  sharply  drawn  between  the  Charter 
adherents  on  one  side  and  unorganized  opponents  on 
the  other.  By  1914  the  issue  was  sharply  defined.  The 
first  twenty-five  years  of  the  Charter  were  about  to  end 
and  the  insurgents  reahzed  that  it  was  an  opportune 
moment  for  a  show  of  strength.  The  opposition  had 
three  plans.  Some  advocated  the  conversion  of  Rho- 
desia into  a  Crown  Colony,  others  strongly  urged  admis- 
sion to  the  Union  of  South  Africa,  while  still  another 
wing  stood  for  Responsible  Government.  It  was  de- 
cided to  unite  on  a  common  platform  of  Responsible 
Government. 

For  the  first  time  the  Company  realized  that  it  had  a 
fight  on  its  hands  and  Dr.  Jameson,  who  had  become 
president  of  the  corporation,  went  out  to  Rhodesia  and 
made  speeches  urging  loyalty  to  the  Charter.  His 
appearance  stirred  memories  of  the  pioneer  days  and 
almost  without  exception  the  old  guard  rallied  round 
him.  A  red-hot  campaign  ensued  with  the  result  that 
the  whole  pro-Charter  ticket,  with  one  exception,  was 
elected,  although  the  antis  polled  45  per  cent  of  the 
total  vote. 

Out  of  this  defeat  came  a  partial  victory  for  the  Pro- 
gressives. The  Imperial  Government  saw  the  hand- 
writing on  the  wall  and  acting  within  its  powers,  which 
permitted  an  administrative  change  in  the  Charter  at 
the  end  of  every  ten  years,  granted  a  Supplemental 
Charter  which  provided  that  the  Legislative  Council 
could  by  an  absolute  majority  of  all  its  members  pass  a 


118         AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

resolution  "praying  the  Crown  to  establish  in  Southern 
Rhodesia  the  form  of  Government  known  as  Responsi- 
ble Government,"  provided  that  it  could  financially 
support  this  procedure.  It  gave  the  insurgents  fresh 
hope  and  it  made  the  Company  realize  that  sooner  or 
later  its  authority  must  end. 

Then  the  Great  War  broke.  Every  available  man 
that  could  possibly  be  spared  went  to  the  Front  and  the 
life  of  the  Council  was  extended  until  1920,  when  a  con- 
clusive election  was  to  be  held.  Meanwhile  the  Com- 
pany, realizing  that  it  must  sooner  or  later  bow  to  the 
people's  will,  got  busy  with  an  attempt  to  realize  on  its 
assets.  Chief  among  them  were  the  millions  of  acres  of 
so-called  "unalienated"  or  Crown  land  in  Southern 
Rhodesia.  The  Chartered  Company  claimed  this  land 
as  a  private  asset.  The  settlers  alleged  that  it  belonged 
to  them.  The  Government  said  it  was  an  imperial 
possession.  The  Privy  Council  in  London  upheld  the 
latter  contention.  Thereupon  the  Company  filed  a  claim 
for  $35,000,000.00  against  the  Government  to  cover  the 
value  of  this  land  and  its  losses  throughout  the  years 
of  administration. 

Yielding  to  pressure  the  Legislative  Council  in  1919 
asked  the  British  Government  to  declare  itself  on  the 
question  of  replacing  the  Charter  with  some  form  of 
Government  suited  to  the  needs  of  the  country.  Lord 
Milner,  the  Colonial  Secretary,  answered  in  what  cartie 
to  be  known  as  the  "Milner  Despatch."  In  it  he  said 
that  he  did  not  believe  the  territory  "in  its  present  stage 
of  development  was  equal  to  the  financial  burden  of  Re- 
sponsible Government."  He  mildly  suggested  repre- 
sentative government  under  the  Crown. 

The  general  expectation  throughout  Rhodesia  was 
that  no  election  would  be  held  until  a  Government  Com- 


RHODES    AND    RHODESIA  119 

mission  then  sitting,  had  inquired  into  the  validity  of  the 
Company's  immense  claim  for  damages.  Early  in 
March  1920,  however,  the  Legislative  Coimcil  gave  no- 
tice that  the  election  was  set  for  April  30th.  It  proved 
to  be  the  most  exciting  ever  held  in  Rhodesia.  The  Char- 
tered Company  made  no  fight.  The  contest  was  really 
waged  between  the  two  wings  of  the  anti-Charter  crowd. 
One  favored  Responsible  Government  and  the  other, 
admission  to  the  Union  of  South  Africa. 

The  arguments  for  Responsible  Government  briefly 
were  these :  That  under  the  Supplemental  Charter  it  was 
the  only  constitutional  change  possible;  that  the  finan- 
cial burden  was  not  too  heavy;  that  the  native  question 
was  no  bar ;  that  the  Imperial  Government  would  never 
saddle  the  country  with  the  huge  debt  of  the  Company ; 
that  under  the  Uuion  a  hateful  bi-lingualism  would  be 
introduced;  that  taxation  would  not  be  excessive,  and 
that  finally,  the  right  of  self-determination  as  to  Govern- 
ment was  the  birthright  of  the  British  people. 

The  adherents  of  Union  contended  that  the  original 
idea  of  Cecil  Rhodes  was  to  make  Rhodesia  a  part  of 
the  Union  of  South  Africa;  that  by  this  procedure  the 
vexing  problem  of  customs  with  the  Union  would  be 
solved;  that  the  system  of  self-government  in  South 
Africa  meets  every  requirement  of  self-determination. 
Moreover,  the  point  was  made  that  by  becoming  a  part 
of  the  Union  the  whole  railway  question  would  be 
settled.  At  present  the  Rhodesian  railways  have  three 
ends,  one  in  South  Africa  at  Vryburg,  another  on  the 
Belgian  border,  and  a  third  at  the  sea  at  Beira.  It  was 
claimed  that  through  the  Union,  Rhodesia  would  benefit 
by  becoming  a  part  of  the  nationalized  railway  system 
there  and  get  the  advantage  of  a  British  port  at  the  Cape 
instead  of  Beira,  which  is  Portuguese.    In  other  words. 


120         AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

Union  meant  stability  of  credit,  politics,  finance  and 
industry. 

The  outcome  of  the  election  was  that  twelve  Respon- 
sible Government  candidates,  one  of  them  a  woman, 
were  elected.  Women  voted  for  the  first  time  in  Rho- 
desia and  they  solidly  opposed  the  union  with  South 
Africa.  The  thirteenth  member  elected  stood  for  the 
conversion  of  the  country  into  a  Crown  Colony  under 
representative  government.  Throughout  the  campaign 
the  Chartered  Company  remained  neutral,  although  it 
was  obviously  opposed  to  Responsible  Government. 
The  feeling  throughout  Rhodesia  is  that  it  favors  Union 
because  it  could  dispose  of  its  assets  to  better  advantage. 

I  arrived  in  Rhodesia  immediately  after  the  election. 
The  country  still  sizzled  with  excitement.  Curiously 
enough,  the  head,  brains  and  front  of  the  fight  for  union 
with  South  Africa  was  a  former  American,  now  a 
British  subject  and  who  has  been  a  ranchman  in  Rho- 
desia for  some  years.    He  prefers  to  be  nameless. 

In  the  light  of  the  landslide  at  the  polls  it  naturally 
followed  that  the  new  Legislative  Council  at  its  first 
meeting  passed  a  resolution  declaring  for  Responsible 
Government.  The  vote  was  twelve  to  five.  Since  this 
was  not  an  absolute  majority,  as  required  by  the  Sup- 
plementary Charter,  it  is  expected  that  the  Imperial 
Government  will  decide  against  granting  this  form  of 
government  just  now.  The  next  procedure  will  prob- 
ably be  a  request  for  representative  government  under 
the  Crown  or  some  modification  of  the  Charter,  and  for 
an  Imperial  loan.  Rhodesia  has  no  borrowing  power 
and  the  country  needs  money  just  as  much  as  its  needs 
men.  The  adherents  of  Union  claim  that  on  a  straight 
show-down  between  Crown  Colony  or  Union  at  the  next 
election.  Union  will  win.     From  what  I  gathered  in 


RHODES    AND    RHODESIA  121 

conversation  with  the  leaders  of  both  factions,  there 
would  have  been  a  bigger  vote,  possibly  victory  for 
Union,  but  for  the  NationaHst  movement  in  South 
Africa,  which  I  described  in  a  previous  chapter.  The 
Rhodesians  want  no  racial  entanglements. 

Northern  Rhodesia  has  no  part  in  the  fight  against  the 
Charter.  It  is  only  a  question  of  time,  however,  when 
she  will  be  merged  into  Southern  Rhodesia  for,  with  the 
passing  of  the  Company,  her  destiny  becomes  identical 
with  that  of  her  sister  territory.  Northern  Rhodesia's 
chief  complaint  against  the  Company  was  that  it  did 
not  spend  any  money  within  her  borders.  After  reading 
the  story  of  the  crusade  for  Responsible  Government 
you  can  understand  the  reason  why. 

Whatever  happens,  Charter  rule  in  Rhodesia  is 
doomed  and  the  great  Company,  born  of  the  vision  and 
imperialism  of  Cecil  Rhodes,  and  which  battled  with  the 
wild  man  in  the  wilderness,  will  eventually  vanish  from 
the  category  of  corporations.  But  Rhodesia  remains  a 
thriving  part  of  the  British  Empire  and  the  dream  of  the 
founder  is  realized. 


Ill 

RHODESIA  produces  much  more  than  trouble 
for  the  Chartered  Company.  She  is  pre- 
eminently a  land  of  ranches  and  farms.  Here 
you  get  still  another  parallel  with  the  United  States 
because  it  is  no  uncommon  thing  to  find  a  farm  of 
50,000  acres  or  more. 

I  doubt  if  any  other  new  region  in  the  world  contains 
a  finer  or  sturdier  manhood  than  Rhodesia.  Like  the 
land  itself  it  is  a  stronghold  of  youth.  Likewise,  no 
other  colony,  and  for  that  matter,  no  other  matured 
country  exercises  such  a  rigid  censorship  upon  settlers. 
Until  the  high  cost  of  living  disorganized  all  economic 
standards,  no  one  could  establish  himself  in  Rhodesia 
without  a  minimum  capital  of  £1,000.  So  far  as  farm- 
ing is  concerned,  this  is  now  increased  to  £2,000.  There- 
fore, you  do  not  see  the  signs  of  failure  which  so  often 
dot  the  semi-virgin  landscape.  Knowing  this,  you  can 
understand  why  the  immigration  inspector  gives  the 
incoming  travellers  a  rigid  cross-examination  at  the 
frontier. 

Also  it  is  simon-pure  British,  and  more  like  Natal  in 
this  respect  than  any  other  territory  under  the  Union- 
jack.  I  had  a  convincing  demonstration  in  a  personal 
experience.  I  made  a  speech  at  the  Bulawayo  Club.  The 
notice  was  short  but  I  was  surprised  to  find  more  than 
a  hundred  men  assembled  after  dinner,  many  in  evening 

lift 


RHODES    AND    RHODESIA  123 

clothes.  Some  had  travelled  all  day  on  horseback  or  in 
buckboards  to  get  there,  others  had  come  hundreds  of 
miles  by  motor  car. 

I  never  addressed  a  more  responsive  audience.  What 
impressed  me  was  the  kindling  spirit  of  affection  they 
manifested  for  the  Mother  Country.  In  conversation 
with  many  of  them  afterwards  it  was  interesting  to  hear 
the  sons  of  settlers  referring  to  the  England  that  they 
had  never  seen,  as  "home."  That  night  I  realized  as 
never  before,  —  not  even  amid  the  agony  and  sacrifice 
of  the  Somme  or  the  Ancre  in  France,  —  one  reason 
why  the  British  Empire  is  great  and  why,  despite  all 
muddling,  it  carries  on.  It  lies  in  the  feeling  of  imperial 
kinship  far  out  at  the  frontiers  of  civilization.  The 
colonial  is  in  many  respects  a  more  devoted  loyalist  than 
the  man  at  home. 

Wherever  I  went  I  found  the  Rhodesian  agriculturist 

—  and  he  constitutes  the  bulk  of  the  white  population, 

—  essentially  modern  in  his  methods.  He  reminds  me 
more  of  the  Kansas  farmer  than  any  other  alien  agri- 
culturists that  I  have  met.  He  uses  tractors  and  does 
things  in  a  big  way.  There  is  a  trail  of  gasoline  all  over 
the  country.  Motorcycles  have  become  an  ordinary 
means  of  transport  for  district  officials  and  engineers, 
who  fly  about  over  the  native  paths  that  are  often  the 
merest  tracks.  You  find  these  machines  in  the  remotest 
regions.  The  light  motor  car  is  also  beginning  to  be 
looked  upon  as  a  necessary  part  of  the  outfit  of  the 
farmer. 

There  was  a  time  when  the  average  Rhodesian  be- 
lieved that  gold  was  the  salvation  of  the  country. 
Repeated  "booms"  and  the  inevitable  losses  have 
brought  the  people  to  agree  with  the  opinion  of  one  of 
the  pioneers,  that  "the  true  wealth  of  the  country  lies 


124         AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

in  the  top  twelve  inches  of  the  soil."  Agriculture  it 
surpassing  mining  as  the  principal  industry. 

The  staple  agricultural  product  is  maize,  which  is 
com  in  the  American  phraseology.  Until  a  few  years 
ago  the  bulk  of  it  was  consumed  at  home.  Recently, 
however,  on  account  of  the  farm  expansion,  there  is  an 
increasing  surplus  for  export  to  the  Union  of  South 
Africa,  the  Belgian  Congo,  and  even  to  Europe. 

The  facts  about  maize  are  worth  considering,  Every 
year  200,000,000  bags,  each  weighing  200  pounds,  are 
consimied  throughout  the  world.  Heretofore  the  prin- 
cipal sources  of  supply  have  been  the  Argentine  and  the 
United  States.  We  have  come  to  the  time,  however, 
when  we  absorb  practically  our  whole  crop.  Formerly 
we  exported  about  10,000,000  bags.  There  is  no  de- 
crease in  corn  consumption  despite  prohibition.  Hence 
Rhodesia  is  bound  to  loom  large  in  the  situation.  Last 
year  she  produced  more  than  a  million  bags.  Maize  is  a 
crop  that  revels  in  sunshine  and  in  Rhodesia  the  sun 
shines  brilliantly  throughout  the  year  practically  without 
variation.    This  enables  the  product  to  be  sun-dried. 

Other  important  crops  are  tobacco,  beans,  peanuts 
(which  are  invariably  called  monkey  nuts  in  that  part 
of  the  universe) ,  wheat  and  oranges.  Under  irrigation, 
citrus  fruits,  oats  and  barley  do  well. 

Cattle  are  a  bulwark  of  Rhodesian  prosperity.  The 
immense  pasturage  areas  are  reminiscent  of  Texas  and 
Montana.  For  a  himdred  years  before  the  white  settlers 
came,  the  Matabeles  and  the  Mashonas  raised  live  stock, 
The  natives  still  own  about  700,000  head,  nearly  as 
many  as  the  whites.  I  was  interested  to  find  that  the 
British  South  Africa  Company  has  imported  a  number 
of  Texas  ranchmen  to  act  as  cattle  experts  and  advise 
the  ranchers  generally.    This  is  due  to  a  desire  to  begin 


RHODES    AND    RHODESIA  125 

a  competition  with  the  Argentine  and  the  United  States 
in  chilled  and  frozen  meats.  One  of  the  greatest  British 
manufactures  of  beef  extracts  owns  half  a  dozen  ranches 
in  Rhodesia  and  it  is  not  imlikely  that  American  meat 
men  will  follow.  Mr.  J.  Ogden  Armour  is  said  to  be 
keenly  interested  in  the  country  with  the  view  of  expand- 
ing the  resources  of  the  Chicago  packers.  This  is  one 
result  of  the  World  War,  which  has  caused  the  producer 
of  food  everywhere  to  bestir  himself  and  insure  future 
supplies. 

In  connection  with  Rhodesian  farming  and  cattle- 
raising  is  a  situation  well  worthy  of  emphasis.  There  is 
no  labour  problem.  You  find,  for  example,  that  miracle 
of  miracles  which  is  embodied  in  a  native  at  work.  It  is  in 
sharp  contrast  with  South  Africa  and  the  Congo,  where, 
with  millions  of  coloured  people  it  is  almost  impossible  to 
get  help.  The  Rhodesian  black  still  remains  outside  the 
leisure  class.  Whether  it  is  due  to  his  fear  of  the  whites 
or  otherwise,  he  is  an  active  member  of  the  productive 
order. 

The  native  will  work  for  the  white  man  but,  save  to 
raise  enough  maize  for  himself,  he  will  not  become  an 
agriculturist.  I  heard  a  typical  story  about  Lewaniki, 
Chief  of  the  Barotses,  who  once  ruled  a  large  part  of 
what  is  now  Northern  Rhodesia.  Someone  asked  him 
to  get  his  people  to  raise  cotton.    His  answer  was : 

"What  is  the  use?    They  cannot  eat  it." 

In  Africa  the  native's  world  never  extends  beyond  his 
stomach.  I  was  soon  to  find  costly  evidence  of  this  in 
the  Congo. 

The  African  native  is  quite  a  character.  He  is  not 
only  a  born  actor  but  has  a  quaint  humor.  In  the  center 
of  the  main  street  at  Bulawayo  is  a  bronze  statue  of 
Cecil  Rhodes,  bareheaded,  and  with  his  face  turned 


126         AN   AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

toward  the  North.  Just  as  soon  as  it  was  unveiled  the 
Matabeles  expressed  considerable  astonishment  over  it. 
They  could  not  understand  why  the  figure  never  moved. 
Shortly  afterwards  a  great  drought  came.  A  native 
chief  went  to  see  the  Resident  Commissioner  and  sol- 
emnly told  him  that  he  was  quite  certain  that  there 
would  be  no  rain  "until  they  put  a  hat  on  Mr.  Rhodes* 
head." 

The  Lewaniki  anecdote  reminds  me  of  an  admirable 
epigram  that  was  produced  in  Rhodesia.  Out  there 
food  is  commonly  known  as  "skoff,"  just  as  "chop"  is 
the  equivalent  in  the  Congo.  A  former  Resident  Com- 
missioner, noted  for  the  keenness  of  his  wit,  once 
asked  a  travelling  missionary  to  dine  with  him.  After 
the  meal  the  guest  insisted  upon  holding  a  religious 
service  at  the  table.  In  speaking  of  the  performance 
the  Commissioner  said:  "My  guest  came  to  'skoff'  and 
remained  to  pray." 

Whenever  you  visit  a  new  land  you  almost  invariably 
discover  mental  alertness  and  progressiveness  that  often 
put  the  older  civilizations  to  shame.  Let  me  illustrate. 
Go  to  England  or  France  today  and  you  touch  the  really 
tragic  aftermath  of  the  war.  You  see  thousands  of 
demobilized  officers  and  men  vainly  searching  for  work. 
Many  are  reduced  to  the  extremity  of  begging.  It  has 
become  an  acute  and  poignant  problem,  that  ii^  not 
without  its  echo  over  here. 

Rhodesia,  through  the  British  South  Africa  Com- 
pany, is  doing  its  bit  toward  solution.  It  has  set  aside 
500,000  acres  which  are  being  allotted  free  of  charge  to 
approved  soldier  and  sailor  settlers  from  overseas.  Not 
only  are  they  being  given  the  land  but  they  are  provided 
with  expert  advice  and  supervision.  The  former  ser- 
vice men  who  are  unable  to  borrow  capital  with  which 


RHODES    AND    RHODESIA  127 

to  exploit  the  land,  are  merged  into  a  scheme  by  which 
they  serve  an  apprenticeship  for  pay  on  the  established 
farms  and  ranches  until  they  are  able  to  shift  for 
themselves. 

The  Chartered  Company,  despite  its  political  ma- 
chine, has  developed  Rhodesia  "on  its  own,"  and  in 
rather  striking  fashion.  It  operates  dairies,  gold  mines, 
citrus  estates,  nurseries,  ranches,  tobacco  warehouses, 
abattoirs,  cold  storage  plants  and  dams,  which  insures 
adequate  water  supply  in  various  sections.  It  is  a 
profitable  example  of  constructive  paternalism  whose 
results  will  be  increasingly  evident  long  after  the  famous 
Charter  has  passed  into  history. 

No  phase  of  the  Company's  activities  is  more  im- 
portant than  its  construction  of  the  Rhodesian  railways. 
They  represent  a  double-barrelled  private  ownership 
in  that  they  were  built  and  are  operated  by  the  Com- 
pany. There  are  nearly  2,600  miles  of  track.  One  sec- 
tion of  the  system  begins  down  at  Vryburg  in  Bechuana- 
land,  where  it  connects  with  the  South  African  Rail- 
ways, and  extends  straight  northward  through  Bula- 
wayo  and  Victoria  Falls  to  the  Congo  border.  The 
other  starts  at  Beira  on  the  Indian  Ocean  and  runs  west 
through  Salisbury,  the  capital,  to  Bulawayo. 

These  railways  have  a  remarkable  statistical  distinc- 
tion in  that  there  is  one  mile  of  track  for  every  thirteen 
white  inhabitants.  No  other  system  in  the  world  can 
duplicate  it.  The  Union  of  South  Africa  comes 
nearest  with  143  white  inhabitants  per  mile  or  just 
eleven  times  as  many.  Canada  has  27,  Australia  247, 
the  United  States  and  New  Zealand  400  each,  while 
the  United  Kingdom  has  over  200  inhabitants  for  every 
mile  of  line. 

Rhodesia  is  highly  mineralized.    Coal  occurs  in  three 


128         AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

areas  and  one  of  them,  Wankie,  —  a  vast  field,  —  is 
extensively  operated.  Gold  is  found  over  the  greater 
part  of  the  country.  Here  you  not  only  touch  an  Amer- 
ican interest  but  you  enter  upon  the  region  that  Rider 
Haggard  introduced  to  readers  as  the  setting  of  some  of 
his  most  famous  romances.  We  wiU  deal  with  the  prac- 
tical side  first. 

Rhodes  had  great  hopes  of  Rhodesia  as  a  gold- 
producing  country.  He  wanted  the  economic  value  of 
the  country  to  rank  with  the  political.  Thousands  of 
years  ago  the  natives  dug  mines  and  many  of  these 
ancient  workings  are  still  to  be  seen.  They  never  exceed 
forty  or  fifty  feet  in  depth.  Many  leading  authorities 
claimed  that  the  South  Arabians  of  the  Kingdom  of 
Saba  often  referred  to  in  the  Bible  were  the  pioneers 
in  the  Rhodesian  gold  fields  and  sold  the  output  to  the 
Phoenicians.  Others  contended  that  the  Phoenicians 
themselves  delved  here.  Until  recently  it  was  also  main- 
tained by  some  scientists  and  Biblical  scholars  that 
modem  Southern  Rhodesia  was  the  famed  land  of 
Ophir,  whence  came  the  gold  and  precious  stones  that 
decked  the  persons  and  palaces  of  Solomon  and  David. 
This,  however,  has  been  disproved,  and  Ophir  is  still 
the  butt  of  archaeological  dispute.  It  has  been  "located" 
in  Arabia,  Spain,  Peru,  India  and  South-East  Africa. 

Rhodes  knew  all  about  the  old  diggings  so  he  engaged 
John  Hays  Hammond,  the  American  engineer,  to 
accompany  him  on  a  trip  through  Rhodesia  in  1894  and 
make  an  investigation  of  the  workings.  His  report 
stated  that  the  rock  mines  were  undoubtedly  ancient, 
that  the  greatest  skill  in  mining  had  been  displayed  and 
that  scores  of  millions  of  pounds  worth  of  the  precious 
metal  had  been  extracted.  It  also  proved  that  practi- 
cally all  this  treasure  had  been  exported  from  the  coun- 


RHODES    AND    RHODESIA  129 

try  for  no  visible  traces  remain.  This  substantiates  the 
theory  that  perhaps  it  did  go  to  the  Phoenicians  or  to  a 
potentate  Hke  King  Solomon.  Hammond  wrote  the 
mining  laws  of  Rhodesia  which  are  an  adaptation  of  the 
American  code. 

The  Rhodesian  gold  mines,  which  are  operated  by 
the  Chartered  Company  and  by  individuals,  have  never 
fully  realized  their  promise.  One  reason,  so  men  like 
Hammond  tell  me,  is  that  they  are  over-capitalized  and 
are  small  and  scattered.  Despite  this  handicap  the  coun- 
try has  produced  £45,227,791  of  gold  since  1890.  The 
output  in  1919  was  worth  £2,500,000.  In  1915  it  was 
nearly  £4,000,000. 

Small  diamonds  in  varying  quantities  have  also  been 
found  in  Rhodesia.  In  exchange  for  having  subscribed 
heavily  to  the  first  issue  of  British  South  Africa  Com- 
pany stock,  the  DeBeers  which  Rhodes  formed  received 
a  monopoly  on  the  diamond  output  and  with  it  the  assur- 
ance of  a  rigid  enforcement  of  the  so-called  Illicit  Dia- 
mond Buying  Act.  This  law,  more  commonly  known  as 
"I.  D.  B."  and  which  has  figured  in  many  South 
African  novels,  provided  drastic  punishment  for  dis- 
honest dealing  in  the  stones.  More  than  one  South 
African  millionaire  owed  the  beginnings  of  his  fortune 
to  evasion  of  this  law. 

Just  about  the  time  that  Rhodes  made  the  Rhodesian 
diamond  deal  a  prospector  came  to  him  and  said:  "If 
I  bring  you  a  handful  of  rough  diamonds  what  will  I  get?" 

"Fifteen  years,"  was  the  ready  retort.  He  was  never 
at  a  loss  for  an  answer. 

We  can  now  turn  to  the  really  romantic  side  of  the 
Rhodesian  mineral  deposits.  One  of  the  favorite  pil- 
grimages of  the  tourist  is  to  the  Zimbabwe  ruins,  located 
about  seventeen  miles  from  Victoria  in  Southern  Rho- 


130         AN    AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

desia.  They  are  the  remains  of  an  ancient  city  and  must 
at  various  times  have  been  the  home  of  large  populations. 
There  seems  little  doubt  that  Zimbabwe  was  the  work  of 
a  prehistoric  and  long-forgotten  people. 

Over  it  hangs  a  mantle  of  mystery  which  the  fiction- 
ist  has  employed  to  full,  and  at  times  thrilling  advantage. 
In  this  vicinity  were  the  "King  Solomon's  Mines,"  that 
Rider  Haggard  wrote  about  in  what  is  perhaps  his 
most  popular  book.  Here  came  "Allan  Quartermain" 
in  pursuit  of  love  and  treasure.  The  big  hill  at  Zim- 
babwe provided  the  residence  of  "She,"  the  lovely  and 
disappearing  lady  who  had  to  be  obeyed.  The  ruins  in 
the  valley  are  supposed  to  be  those  of  "the  Dead  City" 
in  the  same  romance.  The  interesting  feature  of  aU 
this  is  that  "She"  and  "King  Solomon's  Mines"  were 
written  in  the  early  eighties  when  comparatively  nothing 
was  known  of  the  country.  Yet  Rider  Haggard,  with 
that  instinct  which  sometimes  guides  the  romancer, 
wrote  fairly  accurate  descriptions  of  the  country  long 
before  he  had  ever  heard  of  its  actual  existence.  Thus 
imagination  preceded  reality. 

The  imagination  miracles  disclose  in  the  Haggard 
books  are  surpassed  by  the  actual  wonder  represented 
by  Victoria  Falls.  Everybody  has  heard  of  this  stu- 
pendous spectacle  in  Rhodesia  but  few  people  see  it 
because  it  is  so  far  away.  I  beheld  it  on  my  way  from 
Bulawayo  to  the  Congo.  Like  the  Grand  Canyon  of 
the  Colorado,  it  baffles  description. 

The  first  white  man  to  visit  the  cataract  was  Dr. 
Livingstone,  who  named  it  in  honor  of  his  Queen.  This 
was  in  1855.  For  untold  years  the  natives  of  the  region 
had  trembled  at  its  fury.  They  called  it  Mois-oa-tunga, 
which  means  "Smoke  That  Sounds."  When  you  see 
the  falls  you  can  readily  imderstand  why  they  got  this 


RHODES   AND   RHODESIA  131 

name.  The  mist  is  visible  ten  miles  away  and  the  terrific 
roar  of  the  falling  waters  can  be  heard  even  farther. 

The  fact  that  the  casual  traveller  can  see  Victoria 
Falls  from  the  train  is  due  entirely  to  the  foresight  and 
the  imagination  of  Cecil  Rhodes.  He  knew  the  pub- 
licity value  that  the  cataract  would  have  for  Rhodesia 
and  he  combined  the  utilitarian  with  his  love  of  the 
romantic.  In  planning  the  Rhodesian  railroad,  there- 
fore, he  insisted  that  the  bridge  across  the  gorge  of  the 
Zambesi  into  which  the  mighty  waters  flow  after  their 
fall,  must  be  sufficiently  near  to  enable  the  spray  to  wet 
the  railway  carriages.  The  experts  said  it  was  impos- 
sible but  Rhodes  had  his  way,  just  as  Harriman's  will 
prevailed  over  that  of  trained  engineers  in  the  construc- 
tion of  the  bridge  across  Great  Salt  Lake. 

The  bridge  across  the  Zambesi  is  a  fit  mate  in  audacity 
to  the  falls  themselves.  It  is  the  highest  in  the  world 
for  it  rises  400  feet  above  the  low  water  level.  Its  main 
parabolic  arch  is  a  500  foot  span  while  the  total  length 
is  650  feet.  Although  its  construction  was  fraught  with 
contrast  hazard  it  only  cost  two  lives,  despite  the  fact 
that  seven  hundred  white  men  and  two  thousand  natives 
were  employed  on  it.  In  the  building  of  the  Firth  of 
Forth  bridge  which  was  much  less  dangerous,  more  than 
fifty  men  were  killed. 

I  first  saw  the  Falls  in  the  early  morning  when  the 
brilliant  African  sun  was  turned  full  on  this  sight  of 
sights.  It  was  at  the  end  of  the  wet  season  and  the  flow 
was  at  maximun  strength.  The  mist  was  so  great  that 
at  first  I  could  scarcely  see  the  Falls.  Slowly  but  de- 
fiantly the  foaming  face  broke  through  the  veil.  Niag- 
ara gives  you  a  thrill  but  this  toppling  avalanche  awes 
you  into  absolute  silence. 

The  Victoria  Falls  are  exactly  twice  as  broad  and 


182         AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

two  and  one-half  times  as  high  as  Niagara  Falls.  This 
means  that  they  are  over  a  mile  in  breadth  and  four 
hmidred  and  twenty  feet  high.  The  tremendous  flow 
has  only  one  small  outlet  about  100  yards  wide.  The 
roar  and  turmoil  of  this  world  of  water  as  it  crashes 
into  the  chasm  sets  up  what  is  well  called  "The  Boiling 
Pot."  From  this  swirling  melee  the  Zambesi  rushes  with 
unbridled  fury  through  a  narrow  and  deep  gorge,  ex- 
tending with  many  windings  for  forty  miles. 

In  the  presence  of  this  marval,  wars,  elections,  eco- 
nomic upheavals,  the  high  cost  of  living,  prohibition,  — 
all  "that  unrest  which  men  miscall  delight"  —  fade  into 
insignificance.  Life  itself  seems  a  small  and  pitiful 
thing.  You  are  face  to  face  with  a  force  of  Nature  that 
is  titanic,  terrifying,  and  irresistible. 


1    i   -■'-' 


IV 

SINCE  we  bid  farewell  to  Cecil  Rhodes  in  this 
chapter  after  having  almost  continuously  touched 
his  career  from  the  moment  we  reached  Capetown, 
let  us  make  a  final  measure  of  his  human  side,  —  and  he 
was  intensely  human  —  particularly  with  reference  to 
Rhodesia,  which  is  so  inseparably  associated  with  him. 
His  passion  for  the  country  that  bore  his  name  exceeded 
his  interest  in  any  of  his  other  undertakings.  He  liked 
the  open  life  of  the  veldt  where  he  travelled  in  a  sort 
of  gypsy  wagon  and  camped  for  the  night  wherever  the 
mood  dictated.  It  enabled  him  to  gratify  his  fondness 
for  riding  and  shooting. 

He  was  always  accompanied  by  a  remarkable  servant 
named  Tony,  a  half-breed  in  whom  the  Portuguese 
strain  predominated.  Tony  bought  his  master's  clothes, 
paid  his  bills,  and  was  a  court  of  last  resort  "below 
stairs."  Rhodes  declared  that  his  man  could  produce 
a  satisfactory  meal  almost  out  of  thin  air. 

Rhodes  and  Tony  were  inseparable.  Upon  one  occa- 
sion Tony  accompanied  him  when  he  was  commanded  by 
Queen  Victoria  to  lodge  at  Sandringham.  While 
there  Rhodes  asked  Tony  what  time  he  could  get  break- 
fast, whereupon  the  servant  replied: 

"Royalty  does  not  breakfast,  sir,  but  you  can  have 
it  in  the  dining-room  at  half  past  nine."  Tony  seemed 
to  know  everything. 

Throughout  Rhodesia  I  found  many  of  Rhodes'  old 
associates  who  affectionately  referred  to  him  as  "The 

133 


184         AN   AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

Old  Man."  I  was  able  to  collect  what  seemed  to 
be  some  new  Rhodes  stories.  A  few  have  already  been 
related.  Here  is  another  which  shows  his  quickness  in 
capitalizing  a  situation. 

In  the  days  immediately  following  the  first  Matabele 
war  Rhodes  had  more  trouble  with  concession-hunters 
than  with  the  savages,  the  Boers,  or  the  Portuguese. 
Nearly  every  free-lance  in  the  territory  produced  some 
fake  document  to  which  Lobengula's  alleged  mark  was 
affixed  and  offered  it  to  Rhodes  at  an  excessive  price. 

One  of  these  gentry  framed  a  plan  by  which  one  of  the 
many  sons  of  Lobengula  was  to  return  to  Matabele- 
land,  claim  his  royal  rights,  and  create  trouble  generally. 
The  whole  idea  was  to  start  an  uprising  and  derange 
the  machinery  of  the  British  South  Africa  Company. 
The  name  of  the  son  was  N'jube  and  at  the  time  the 
plan  was  devised  he  held  a  place  as  messenger  in  the  dia- 
mond fields  at  Kimberley.  By  the  system  of  intelligence 
that  he  maintained,  Rhodes  learned  of  the  frame-up,  the 
whereabouts  of  the  boy,  and  furthermore,  that  he  was 
in  love  with  a  Fingo  girl.  These  Fingoes  were  a  sort 
of  bastard  slave  people.  Marriage  into  the  tribe  was  a 
despised  thing,  and  by  a  native  of  royal  blood,  meant 
the  abrogation  of  all  his  claims  to  the  succession. 

Rhodes  sent  for  N'jube  and  asked  him  if  he  wanted  to 
marry  the  Fingo  girl.  When  he  replied  that  he  did,  the 
great  man  said:  "Go  down  to  the  DeBeers  office,  get 
£50  and  marry  the  girl.  I  will  then  give  you  a  job  for 
life  and  build  you  a  house." 

N'jube  took  the  hint  and  the  money  and  married  the 
girl.  Rhodes  now  sent  the  following  telegram  to  the 
conspirator  at  Bulawayo: 

"Your  friend  N'jube  was  divided  between  love  and 
empire,  but  he  has  decided  to  marry  the  Fingo  girl. 


RHODES    AND    RHODESIA  185 

It  is  better  that  he  should  settle  down  in  Kimberley  and 
be  occupied  in  creating  a  family  than  to  plot  at  Bula- 
wayo  to  stab  you  in  the  stomach." 

This  ended  the  conspiracy,  and  N'jube  lived  happily 
and  peacefully  ever  afterwards. 

Rhodes  was  an  incorrigible  imperialist  as  this  story 
shows.  Upon  one  occasion  at  Bulawayo  he  was  discuss- 
ing the  Carnegie  Library  idea  with  his  friend  and 
associate,  Sir  Abe  Bailey,  a  leading  financial  and  politi- 
cal figure  in  the  Cape  Colony. 

"What  would  you  do  if  you  had  Carnegie's  money?" 
asked  Bailey. 

"I  wouldn't  waste  it  on  libraries,"  he  replied.  "I 
would  seize  a  South  American  Republic  and  annex  it  to 
the  United  States." 

Rhodes  had  great  admiration  for  America.  He  once 
said  to  Bailey:  "The  greatest  thing  in  the  world  would 
be  the  union  of  the  Enghsh-speaking  people.  I  wouldn't 
mind  if  Washington  were  the  capital."  He  believed 
implicitly  in  the  invincibility  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race, 
and  he  gave  his  life  and  his  fortune  to  advance  the 
British  part  of  it. 

For  the  last  I  have  reserved  the  experience  that  will 
always  rank  first  in  my  remembrance  of  Rhodesia.  It 
was  my  visit  to  the  grave  of  Rhodes.  Most  people  who 
go  to  Rhodesia  make  this  pilgrimage,  for  in  the  well- 
known  tourist  language  of  Mr.  Cook,  like  Victoria 
Falls,  it  is  "one  of  the  things  to  see."  I  was  animated 
by  a  different  motive.  I  had  often  read  about  it  and  I 
longed  to  view  the  spot  that  so  eloquently  symbolized 
the  vision  and  the  imagination  of  the  man  I  admired. 

The  grave  is  about  twenty-eight  miles  from  Bula- 
wayo, in  the  heart  of  the  Matopo  Hills.  You  follow  the 
road  along  which  the  body  was  carried  nineteen  years 


136         AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

ago.  You  see  the  native  hut  where  Rhodes  often  lived 
and  in  which  the  remains  rested  for  the  night  on  the 
final  journey.  You  pass  from  the  green  low-lands  to 
the  bare  frontiers  of  the  rocky  domain  where  the  Mata- 
beles  fled  after  the  second  war  and  where  the  Father 
of  Rhodesia  held  his  historic  parleys  with  them. 

Soon  the  way  becomes  so  difficult  that  you  must 
leave  the  motor  and  continue  on  foot.  The  Matopos  are 
a  wild  and  desolate  range.  It  is  not  until  you  are  well 
beyond  the  granite  outposts  that  there  bursts  upon  you 
an  immense  open  area,  —  a  sort  of  amphitheatre  in 
which  the  Druids  might  have  held  their  weird  ritual. 
Directly  ahead  you  see  a  battlement  of  boulders  pro- 
jected by  some  immemorial  upheaval.  Intrenched  be- 
tween them  is  the  spot  where  Rhodes  rests  and  which  is 
marked  by  a  brass  plate  bearing  the  words :  "Here  Lie 
the  Remains  of  Cecil  John  Rhodes."  In  his  will  he 
directed  that  the  site  be  chosen  and  even  wrote  the  simple 
inscription  for  the  cover. 

"WTien  you  stand  on  this  eminence  and  look  out  on 
the  grim,  brooding  landscape,  you  not  only  realize  why 
Rhodes  called  it  "The  View  of  the  World,"  but  you  also 
understand  why  he  elected  to  sleep  here.  The  loneli- 
ness and  grandeur  of  the  environment,  with  its  absence 
of  any  sign  of  human  life  and  habitation,  convey  that 
sense  of  aloofness  which,  in  a  man  like  Rhodes,  is  the  in- 
evitable penalty  that  true  greatness  exacts.  The  ages 
seem  to  be  keeping  vigil  with  his  spirit. 

For  eighteen  years  Rhodes  slept  here  in  solitary  state. 
In  1920  the  remains  of  Dr.  Jameson  were  placed  in  a 
grave  hewn  out  of  the  rock  and  located  about  one  hun- 
dred feet  from  the  spot  where  his  old  friend  rests.  It 
is  peculiarly  fitting  that  these  two  men  who  played  such 
heroic  part  in  the  rise  of  Rhodesia  should  repose  within 
a  stone's  throw  of  each  other. 


RHODES    AND    RHODESIA  137 

During  these  last  years  I  have  seen  some  of  the  great 
things.  They  included  the  British  Grand  Fleet  in  battle 
array,  Russia  at  the  daybreak  of  democracy,  the  long 
travail  of  Verdun  and  the  Somme,  the  first  American 
flag  on  the  battlefields  of  France,  Armistice  Day  amid 
the  tragedy  of  war,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  panorama  that 
those  momentous  days  disclosed.  But  nothing  perhaps 
was  more  moving  than  the  silence  and  majesty  that 
invested  the  grave  of  Cecil  Rhodes.  Instinctively  there 
came  to  my  mind  the  lines  about  him  that  Kipling  wrote 
in  "The  Burial": 

It  is  his  will  that  he  look  forth 

Across  the  world  he  won  — 
The  granite  of  the  ancient  North  — 

Great  spaces  washed  with  sun. 

When  I  reached  the  bottom  of  the  long  incline  on  my 
way  out  I  looked  back.  The  sun  was  setting  and  those 
sentinel  boulders  bulked  in  the  dying  light.  They 
seemed  to  incarnate  something  of  the  might  and  power 
of  the  personality  that  shaped  Rhodesia,  and  made  of  it 
an  annex  of  Empire. 


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IV  — THE    CONGO   TODAY 


UNFOLD  the  map  of  Africa  and  you  see  a  huge 
yellow  area  sprawling  over  the  Equator,  reach- 
ing down  to  Rhodesia  on  the  south-east,  and 
converging  to  a  point  on  the  Atlantic  Coast.  Equal  in 
size  to  all  Latin  and  Teutonic  Europe,  it  is  the  abode  of 

6,000  white  men  and  12,000,000  blacks.  No  other  sec- 
tion of  that  vast  empire  of  mystery  is  so  packed  with 
hazard  and  hardship,  nor  is  any  so  bound  up  with 
American  enterprise.  Across  it  Stanley  made  his  way 
in  two  epic  expeditions.  Livingstone  gave  it  the  glam- 
our of  his  spiritualizing  influence.  Fourteen  nations 
stood  sponsor  at  its  birth  as  a  Free  State  and  the  whole 
world  shook  with  controversay  about  its  administration. 
Once  the  darkest  domain  of  the  Dark  Continent,  it  is 
still  the  stronghold  of  the  resisting  jungle  and  the  last 
frontier  of  civilization.    It  is  the  Belgian  Congo. 

During  these  past  years  the  veil  has  been  lifted  from 
the  greater  part  of  Africa.  We  are  familiar  with  life 
and  customs  in  the  British,  French,  and  to  a  certain  de- 
gree, the  Portuguese  and  one-time  German  colonies. 
But  about  the  land  inseparably  associated  with  the  eco- 
nomic statesmanship  of  King  Leopold  there  still  hangs 
a  shroud  of  uncertainty  as  to  regime  and  resource.  Few 
people  go  there  and  its  literature,  save  that  which  grew 
out  of  the  atrocity  campaign,  is  meager  and  unsatis- 
factory.   To  the  vast  majority  of  persons,  therefore, 

139 


140         AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

the  country  is  merely  a  name  —  a  dab  of  colour  on  the 
globe.  Its  very  distance  lends  enchantment  and  height- 
ens the  lure  that  always  lurks  in  the  unknown.  What 
is  it  like?  What  is  its  place  in  the  universal  productive 
scheme?    What  of  its  future? 

I  went  to  the  Congo  to  find  out.  My  journey  there 
was  the  logical  sequel  to  my  visit  to  the  Union  of  South 
Africa  and  Rhodesia,  which  I  have  already  described. 
It  seemed  a  pity  not  to  take  a  plunge  into  the  region 
that  I  had  read  about  in  the  books  of  Stanley.  In  my 
childhood  I  heard  him  tell  the  story  of  some  of  his 
African  experiences.  The  man  and  his  narrative  were 
unforgettable  for  he  incarnated  both  the  ideal  and  the 
adventure  of  journalism.  Hei^  cast  the  spell  of  the 
Congo  River  over  me  and  I  lingered  to  see  this  mother  of 
waters.  Thus  it  came  about  that  I  not  only  followed 
Stanley's  trail  through  the  heart  of  Equatorial  Africa 
but  spent  weeks  floating  down  the  historic  stream,  which 
like  the  rivers  that  figured  in  the  Great  War,  has  a  dis- 
tinct and  definite  human  quality.  The  Marne,  the 
Meuse,  and  the  Somme  are  the  Rivers  of  Valour.  The 
Congo  is  the  River  of  Adventure. 

In  writing,  as  in  everything  else,  preparedness  is  all 
essential.  I  learned  the  value  of  carrying  proper  creden- 
tials during  the  war,  when  every  frontier  and  police 
official  constituted  himself  a  stumbling-block  to  prog- 
ress. For  the  South  African  end  of  my  adventure  I 
provided  myself  with  letters  from  Lloyd  George  and 
Smuts.  In  the  Congo  I  realized  that  I  would  require 
equally  powerful  agencies  to  help  me  on  my  way. 
Wandering  through  sparsely  settled  Central  Africa  with 
its  millions  of  natives,  scattered  white  settlements,  and 
restricted  and  sometimes  primitive  means  of  transport, 
was  a  far  dijfferent  proposition  than  travelling  in  the 


THE    CONGO    TODAY  141 

Cape  Colony,  the  Transvaal,  or  Rhodesia,  where  there 
are  through  trains  and  habitable  hotels. 

I  knew  that  in  the  Congo  the  State  was  magic,  and 
the  King's  name  one  to  conjure  with.  Accordingly,  I 
obtained  what  amounted  to  an  order  from  the  Belgian 
Colonial  Office  to  all  functionaries  to  help  me  in  every 
possible  way.  This  order,  I  might  add,  was  really  a  com- 
mand from  King  Albert,  with  whom  I  had  an  hour's  pri- 
vate audience  at  Brussels  before  I  sailed.  As  I  sat  in  the 
simple  office  of  the  Palace  and  talked  with  this  shy,  tall, 
blonde,  and  really  kingly-looking  person,  I  could  not 
help  thinking  of  the  last  time  I  saw  him.  It  was  at  La 
Panne  during  that  terrible  winter  of  1916-1917,  when  the 
Germans  were  at  the  high  tide  of  their  success.  The 
Belgian  ruler  had  taken  refuge  in  this  bleak,  sea-swept 
comer  of  Belgium  and  the  only  part  of  the  country  that 
had  escaped  the  invader.  He  lived  in  a  little  chalet  near 
the  beach.  Every  day  the  King  walked  up  and  down 
on  the  sands  while  German  aeroplanes  flew  overhead 
and  the  roar  of  the  guns  at  Dixmude  smote  the  ear. 
He  was  then  leading  what  seemed  to  be  a  forlorn  hope 
and  he  betrayed  his  anxiety  in  face  and  speech.  Now  I 
beheld  him  fresh  and  buoyant,  and  monarch  of  the  only 
country  in  Europe  that  had  really  settled  down  to 
work. 

King  Albert  asked  me  many  questions  about  my  trip. 
He  told  me  of  his  own  journey  through  the  Congo  in 
1908  (he  was  then  Prince  Albert),  when  he  covered 
more  than  a  thousand  miles  on  foot.  He  said  that  he 
was  glad  that  an  American  was  going  to  write  some- 
thing about  the  Congo  at  first  hand  and  he  expressed 
his  keen  appreciation  of  the  work  of  American  capital  in 
his  big  colony  overseas.  "I  like  America  and  Ameri- 
cans," he  said,  "and  I  hope  that  your  country  will  not 


142  AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

forget  Europe."  There  was  a  warm  clasp  of  the  hand 
and  I  was  off  on  the  first  lap  of  the  journey  that  was  to 
reel  off  more  than  twenty-six  thousand  miles  of  stren- 
uous travel  before  I  saw  my  little  domicile  in  New  York 
again. 

Before  we  invade  the  Congo  let  me  briefly  outline 
its  history.  It  can  be  told  in  a  few  words  although  the 
narrative  of  its  exploitations  remains  a  serial  without 
end.  Prior  to  Stanley's  memorable  journey  of  explo- 
ration across  Equatorial  Africa  which  he  described  in 
"Through  the  Dark  Continent,"  what  is  now  the  Congo 
was  a  blank  spot  on  the  map.  No  white  man  had  trav- 
ersed it.  In  the  fifties  Livingstone  had  opened  up  part 
of  the  present  British  East  Africa  and  Nyassaland.  In 
the  Luapula  and  its  tributaries  he  discovered  the  head- 
waters of  the  Congo  River  and  then  continued  on  to 
Victoria  Falls  and  Rhodesia.  After  Stanley  found  the 
famous  missionary  at  Ujiji  on  Lake  Tanganyika  in 
1872,  he  returned  to  Zanzibar.  Hence  the  broad  ex- 
panse of  Central  Africa  from  Nyassaland  westward 
practically  remained  undiscovered  until  Stanley  crossed 
it  between  1874  and  1877,  when  he  travelled  from 
Stanley  Falls,  where  the  Congo  River  actually  begins, 
down  its  expanse  to  the  sea. 

As  soon  as  Stanley's  articles  about  the  Congo  began 
to  appear.  King  Leopold,  who  was  a  shrewd  business 
man,  saw  an  opportunity  for  the  expansion  of  his  little 
country.  Under  his  auspices  several  International  Com- 
mittees dedicated  to  African  study  were  formed.  He 
then  sent  Stanley  back  to  the  Congo  in  1879,  to  organize 
a  string  of  stations  from  the  ocean  up  to  Stanley  Falls, 
now  Stanleyville.  In  1885  the  famous  Berlin  Congress 
of  Nations,  presided  over  by  Bismarck,  recognized  the 
Congo  Free  State,  accepted  Leopold  as  its  sovereign. 


THE    CONGO    TODAY  143 

and  the  jungle  domain  took  its  place  among  recognized 
governments.  The  principal  purposes  animating  the 
founders  were  the  suppression  of  the  slave  trade  and 
the  conversion  of  the  territory  into  a  combined  factory 
and  a  market  for  all  the  nations.  It  was  largely  due 
to  Belgian  initiative  that  the  traffic  in  human  beings 
which  denuded  all  Central  Africa  of  its  bone  and  sinew 
every  year,  was  brought  to  an  end. 

The  world  is  more  or  less  familiar  with  subsequent 
Congo  history.  In  1904  arose  the  first  protest  against 
the  so-called  atrocities  perpetrated  on  the  blacks,  and 
the  Congo  became  the  center  of  an  international  dis- 
pute that  nearly  lost  Belgium  her  only  colonial  posses- 
sion. In  the  light  of  the  revelations  brought  about  by  the 
Great  War,  and  to  which  I  have  referred  in  a  previous 
chapter,  it  is  obvious  that  a  considerable  part  of  this 
crusade  had  its  origin  in  Germany  and  was  fomented 
by  Germanophiles  of  the  type  of  Sir  Roger  Casement, 
who  was  hanged  in  the  Tower  of  London.  During  the 
World  War  E.  D.  Morel,  his  principal  associate  in  the 
atrocity  campaign,  served  a  jail  sentence  in  England  for 
attempting  to  smuggle  a  seditious  document  into  an 
enemy  country. 

With  the  atrocity  business  we  are  not  concerned. 
The  only  atrocities  that  I  saw  in  the  Congo  were  the 
slaughter  of  my  clothes  on  the  native  washboard,  usually 
a  rock,  and  the  American  jitney  that  broke  down  and 
left  me  stranded  in  the  Kasai  jungle.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  Belgian  rule  in  the  Congo  has  swung  round 
to  another  extreme,  for  the  Negro  there  has  more  free- 
dom of  movement  and  less  responsibility  for  action  than 
in  any  other  African  colony.  To  round  out  this  brief 
history,  the  Congo  was  ceded  to  Belgium  in  1908  and  has 
been  a  Belgian  colony  ever  since. 


144         AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

We  can  now  go  on  with  the  journey.  From  Bula- 
wayo  I  travelled  northward  for  three  days  past  Victoria 
Falls  and  Broken  Hill,  through  the  undeveloped  reaches 
of  Northern  Rhodesia,  where  you  can  sometimes  see 
lion-tracks  from  the  car  windows,  and  where  the  naked 
Barotses  emerge  from  the  wilds  and  stare  in  big-eyed 
wonder  at  the  passing  trains.  Until  recently  the  tele- 
graph service  was  considerably  impaired  by  the  curi- 
osity of  elephants  who  insisted  upon  knocking  down  the 
poles. 

While  I  was  in  South  Africa  alarming  reports  were 
published  about  a  strike  in  the  Congo  and  I  was  afraid 
that  it  would  interfere  with  my  journey.  This  strike 
was  without  doubt  one  of  the  most  unique  in  the  history 
of  all  labor  troubles.  The  whole  Congo  administration 
"walked  out,"  when  their  request  for  an  increase  in  pay 
was  refused.  The  strikers  included  Government  agents, 
railway,  telegraph  and  telephone  employes,  and  steam- 
boat captains.  Even  the  one-time  cannibals  employed 
on  all  public  construction  quit  work.  It  was  a  natural 
procedure  for  them.  Not  a  wheel  turned;  no  word 
went  over  the  wires;  navigation  on  the  rivers  ceased. 
The  country  was  paralyzed.  Happily  for  me  it  was 
settled  before  I  left  Bulawayo. 

Late  at  night  I  crossed  the  Congo  border  and  stopped 
for  the  customs  at  Sakania.  At  once  I  realized  the 
potency  that  lay  in  my  royal  credentials  for  all  traffic 
was  tied  up  until  I  was  expedited.  I  also  got  the  initial 
surprise  of  the  many  that  awaited  me  in  this  part  of  the 
world.  In  the  popular  mind  the  Congo  is  an  annex  of 
the  Inferno.  I  can  vouch  for  the  fact  that  some  sections 
break  all  heat  records.  The  air  that  greeted  me,  however, 
might  have  been  wafted  down  from  Greenland's  icy 
mountain,  for  I  was  chilled  to  the  bone.    In  the  flicker- 


THE    CONGO    TODAY  145 

ing  light  of  the  station  the  natives  shivered  in  their 
blankets.  The  atmosphere  was  anything  but  tropical 
yet  I  was  almost  within  striking  distance  of  the  Equator. 
The  reason  for  this  frigidity  was  that  I  had  entered  the 
confines  of  the  Katanga,  the  most  healthful  and  highly 
developed  province  of  the  Congo  and  a  plateau  four 
thousand  feet  above  sea  level. 

The  next  afternoon  I  arrived  at  Elizabethville,  named 
for  the  Queen  of  the  Belgians,  capital  of  the  province, 
and  center  of  the  copper  activity.  Here  I  touched  two 
significant  things.  One  was  the  group  of  American 
engineers  who  have  developed  the  technical  side  of  min- 
ing in  the  Katanga  as  elsewhere  in  the  Congo ;  the  other 
was  a  contact  with  the  industry  which  produces  a  con- 
siderable part  of  the  wealth  of  the  Colony. 

There  is  a  wide  impression  that  the  Congo  is  entirely 
an  agricultural  country.  Although  it  has  unlimited 
possibilities  in  this  direction,  the  reverse,  for  the  moment, 
is  true.  The  900,000  square  miles  of  area  (it  is  eighty- 
eight  times  the  size  of  Belgium)  have  scarcely  been 
scraped  by  the  hand  of  man,  although  Nature  has  been 
prodigal  in  her  share  of  the  development.  Wild  rubber, 
the  gathering  of  which  loosed  the  storm  about  King 
Leopold's  head,  is  nearly  exhausted  because  of  the  one- 
time ruthless  harvesting.  Cotton  and  coffee  are  infant 
industries.  The  principal  product  of  the  soil,  commer- 
cially, is  the  fruit  of  the  palm  tree  and  here  Nature  again 
does  most  of  the  ground  work. 

Mining  is,  in  many  respects,  the  chief  operation  and 
the  Katanga,  which  is  really  one  huge  mine,  principally 
copper,  is  the  most  prosperous  region  so  far  as  bulk  of 
output  is  concerned.  Since  this  area  figures  so  promi- 
nently in  the  economic  annals  of  the  country  it  is  worth 
more  than  passing  attention.     Like  so  many  parts  of 


146         AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

Africa,  its  exploitation  is  recent.  For  years  after 
Livingstone  planted  the  gospel  there,  it  continued  to 
be  the  haunt  of  warlike  tribes.  The  earliest  white  visi- 
tors observed  that  the  natives  wore  copper  ornaments 
and  trafficked  in  a  rude  St.  Andrew's  cross  —  it  was  the 
coin  of  the  country  —  fashioned  out  of  metal.  When 
prospectors  came  through  in  the  eighties  and  nineties 
they  found  scores  of  old  copper  mines  which  had  been 
worked  by  the  aborigines  many  decades  ago.  Before 
the  advent  of  civilization  the  Katanga  blacks  dealt 
mainly  in  slaves  and  in  copper. 

The  real  pioneer  of  development  in  the  Katanga  is 
an  Englishman,  Robert  Williams,  a  friend  and  col- 
league of  Cecil  Rhodes,  and  who  constructed,  as  you 
may  possibly  recall,  the  link  in  the  Cape-to-Cairo  Rail- 
way from  Broken  Hill  in  Northern  Rhodesia  to  the 
Congo  border.  He  has  done  for  Congo  copper  what 
Lord  Leverhulme  has  accomplished  for  palm  fruit  and 
Thomas  F.  Ryan  for  diamonds.  Congo  progress  is 
almost  entirely  due  to  alien  capital. 

Williams,  who  was  born  in  Aberdeen,  Scotland,  went 
out  to  Africa  in  1881  to  take  charge  of  some  min- 
ing machinery  at  one  of  the  Kimberley  diamond  mines. 
Here  he  met  Rhodes  and  an  association  began  which 
continued  until  the  death  of  the  empire  builder.  On  his 
death-bed  Rhodes  asked  Williams  to  continue  the  Cape- 
to-Cairo  project.  In  the  acquiescence  to  this  request 
the  Katanga  indirectly  owes  much  of  its  advance.  Thus 
the  constructive  influence  of  the  Colossus  of  South 
Africa  extends  beyond  the  British  dominions. 

In  building  the  Broken  Hill  Railway  Wilhams  was 
prompted  by  two  reasons.  One  was  to  carry  on  the 
Rhodes  project;  the  other  was  to  link  up  what  he 
believed  to  be  a  whole  new  mineral  world  to  the  needs  of 


THE    CONGO    TODAY  147 

man.  Nor  was  he  working  in  the  dark.  Late  in  the 
nineties  he  had  sent  George  Grey,  a  brother  of  Sir 
Edward,  now  Viscount  Grey,  through  the  present 
Katanga  region  on  a  prospecting  expedition.  Grey 
discovered  large  deposits  of  copper  and  also  tin,  lead, 
iron,  coal,  platinum,  and  diamonds.  Williams  now 
organized  the  company  known  as  the  Tanganyika  Con- 
cessions, which  became  the  instigator  of  Congo  copper 
mining.  Subsequently  the  Union  Miniere  du  Haut 
Kantanga  was  formed  by  leading  Belgian  colonial  cap- 
italists and  the  Tanganyika  Concessions  acquired  more 
than  forty  per  cent  of  its  capital.  The  Union  Miniere 
took  over  all  the  concessions  and  discoveries  of  the 
British  corporation.  The  Union  Miniere  is  now  the 
leading  industrial  institution  in  the  Katanga  and  its 
story  is  really  the  narrative  of  a  considerable  phase  of 
Congo  development. 

Within  ten  years  it  has  grown  from  a  small  pros- 
pecting outfit  in  the  wilderness,  two  hundred  and  fifty 
miles  from  a  railway,  to  an  industry  employing  at  the 
time  of  my  visit  more  than  1,000  white  men  and  15,000 
blacks.  It  operates  four  completely  equipped  mines 
which  produced  nearly  30,000  tons  of  copper  in  1917, 
and  a  smelter  with  an  annual  capacity  of  40,000  tons 
of  copper.  A  concentrator  capable  of  handling  4,000 
tons  of  ore  per  day  is  nearing  completion.  This  bust- 
ling industrial  community  was  the  second  surprise  that 
the  Congo  disclosed. 

Equally  remarkable  is  the  mushroom  growth  of 
Elizabethville,  the  one  wonder  town  of  the  Congo.  In 
1910,  when  the  railway  arrived,  it  was  a  geographical 
expression,  —  a  spot  in  the  jungle  dominated  by  the 
huge  ant-hills  that  you  find  throughout  Central  Africa, 
some  of  them  forty  feet  high.     The  white  population 


148         AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

numbered  thirty.  I  found  it  a  thriving  place  with  over 
2,000  whites  and  12,000  blacks.  There  are  one  third  as 
many  white  people  in  the  Katanga  Province  as  in  all 
the  rest  of  the  Congo  combined,  and  its  area  is  scarcely 
a  fourth  of  that  of  the  colony. 

The  father  of  Elizabethville  is  General  Emile  Wan- 
germee,  one  of  the  picturesque  figures  in  Congo  history. 
He  came  out  in  the  early  days  of  the  Free  State,  fought 
natives,  and  played  a  big  part  in  the  settlement  of  the 
country.  He  has  been  Governor- General  of  the  Colony, 
Vice-Governor-General  of  the  Katanga  and  is  now 
Honorary  Vice-Govemor.  In  the  primitive  period  he 
went  about,  after  the  Congo  fashion,  on  a  bicycle,  in 
flannel  shirt  and  leggins  and  he  continued  this  rough- 
and-ready  attire  when  he  became  a  high-placed  civil 
servant. 

Upon  one  occasion  it  was  announced  that  the  Vice- 
Governor  of  the  Katanga  would  visit  Kambove.  The 
station  agent  made  elaborate  preparations  for  his  re- 
ception. Shortly  before  the  time  set  for  his  arrival  a 
man  appeared  on  the  platform  looking  like  one  of  the 
many  prospectors  who  frequented  the  country.  The 
station  agent  approached  him  and  said,  "You  will  have 
to  move  on.  We  are  expecting  the  Vice-Governor  of 
the  Katanga."  The  supposed  prospector  refused  to 
move  and  the  agent  threatened  to  use  force.  He  was 
horrified  a  few  minutes  later  to  find  his  rough  customer 
being  received  by  all  the  functionaries  of  the  district. 
Wangermee  had  arrived  ahead  of  time  and  had  not 
bothered  to  change  his  clothes. 

When  I  rode  in  a  motor  car  down  Elizabethville*s 
broad,  electric-lighted  avenues  and  saw  smartly-dressed 
women  on  the  sidewalks,  beheld  Belgians  playing  tennis 
on  well-laid-out  courts  on  one  side,  and  Englishmen  at 


THE    CONGO    TODAY  149 

golf  on  the  other,  it  was  difficult  to  believe  that  ten 
years  ago  this  was  the  bush.  I  lunched  in  comfortable 
brick  houses  and  dined  at  night  in  a  club  where  every 
man  wore  evening  clothes.  I  kept  saying  to  myself, 
"Is  this  really  the  Congo?"  Everywhere  I  heard 
English  spoken.  This  was  due  to  the  large  British 
interest  in  the  Union  Miniere  and  the  presence  of  so 
many  American  engineers.  The  Katanga  is,  with  the 
exception  of  certain  palm  fruit  areas,  the  bulwark  of 
British  interests  in  the  Congo.  The  American  domain 
is  the  Upper  Kasai  district. 

Conspicuous  among  the  Americans  at  Elizabethville 
was  Preston  K.  Horner,  who  constructed  the  smelter 
plant  and  who  was  made  General  JNIanager  of  the  Union 
Miniere  in  1913.  He  spans  the  whole  period  of  Katanga 
development  for  he  first  arrived  in  1909.  Associated 
with  him  were  various  Americans  including  Frank 
Kehew,  Superintendent  of  the  smelter,  Thomas  Carna- 
han.  General  Superintendent  of  Mines,  Daniel  Butner, 
Superintendent  of  the  Kambove  Mine,  the  largest  of 
the  Katanga  group,  Thomas  Yale,  who  is  in  charge  of 
the  construction  of  the  immense  concentration  plant  at 
Likasi,  and  A.  Brooks,  Manager  of  the  Western  Mine. 
For  some  years  A.  E.  Wheeler,  a  widely-known  Ameri- 
can engineer,  has  been  Consulting  Engineer  of  the 
Union  Miniere,  with  Frederick  Snow  as  assistant. 
Since  my  return  from  Africa  Horner  has  retired  as 
General  Manager  and  Wheeler  has  become  the  ranking 
American.  Practically  all  the  Yankee  experts  in  the 
Katanga  are  graduates  of  the  Anaconda  or  Utah  Mines. 

With  Horner  I  travelled  by  motor  through  the  whole 
Katanga  copper  belt.  I  visited,  first  of  all,  the  famous 
Star  of  the  Congo  Mine,  eight  miles  from  Elizabeth- 
ville, and  which  was  the  cornerstone  of  the  entire  metal 


150         AN   AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

development.  Next  came  the  immense  excavation  at 
Kambove  where  I  watched  American  steam  shovels, 
in  charge  of  Americans,  gouging  the  copper  ore  out  of 
the  sides  of  the  hills.  I  saw  the  huge  concentrating 
plant  rising  almost  like  magic  out  of  the  jungle  at 
Likasi.  Here  again  an  American  was  in  control.  At 
Fungurume  I  spent  the  night  in  a  native  house  in  the 
heart  of  one  of  the  loveHest  of  valleys  whose  verdant 
walls  will  soon  be  gashed  by  shovels  and  discoloured 
with  ore  oxide.  Over  all  the  area  the  Anglo-Saxon  has 
laid  his  galvanizing  hand.  One  reason  is  that  there  are 
few  Belgian  engineers  of  large  mining  experience.  An- 
other is  that  the  American,  by  common  consent,  is  the 
one  executive  who  gets  things  done  in  the  primitive 
places. 

I  cannot  leave  the  Congo  copper  empire  without  re- 
ferring to  another  Robert  Williams  achievement  which 
is  not  without  international  significance.  Like  other 
practical  men  of  affairs  with  colonial  experience,  he 
realized  long  before  the  outbreak  of  the  Great  War 
something  of  the  extent  and  menace  of  the  German  am- 
bition in  Africa.  As  I  have  previously  related,  the 
Kaiser  blocked  his  scheme  to  run  the  Cape-to-Cairo 
Railway  between  Lake  Tanganyika  and  Lake  Kivu, 
after  King  Leopold  had  granted  him  the  concession. 
Williams  wanted  to  help  Rhodes  and  he  wanted  to  help 
himself.  His  chief  problem  was  to  get  the  copper  from 
the  Katanga  to  Europe  in  the  shortest  possible  time. 
Most  of  it  is  refined  in  England  and  Belgium.  At 
present  it  goes  out  by  way  of  Bulawayo  and  is  shipped 
from  the  port  of  Beira  in  Portuguese  East  Africa. 
This  involves  a  journey  of  9,514  miles  from  Kambove 
to  London.  How  was  this  haul  to  be  shortened  through 
an  agency  that  would  be  proof  against  the  German  in- 
trigue and  ingenuity? 


ON  THE  LUALABA 


A  VIEW  ON  THE   KASAI 


THE    CONGO    TODAY  151 

Williams  cast  his  eye  over  Africa.  On  the  West 
Coast  he  spotted  Lobito  Bay,  a  land-locked  harbour 
twenty  miles  north  of  Benguella,  one  of  the  principal 
parts  of  Angola,  a  Portuguese  colony.  From  it  he  ran 
a  line  straight  from  Kambove  across  the  wilderness 
and  found  that  it  covered  a  distance  of  approximately 
1,300  miles.  He  said  to  himself,  "This  is  the  natural 
outlet  of  the  Katanga  and  the  short-cut  to  England  and 
Belgium."  He  got  a  concession  from  the  Portuguese 
Government  and  work  began.  The  Germans  tried  in 
every  way  to  block  the  project  for  it  interfered  with 
their  scheme  to  "benevolently"  assimilate  Angola. 

At  the  time  of  my  visit  to  the  Congo  three  hundred 
and  twenty  miles  of  the  Benguella  Railway,  as  it  is 
called,  had  been  constructed  and  a  section  of  one  hun- 
dred miles  or  more  was  about  to  be  started.  The  line 
will  pass  through  Ruwe,  which  is  an  important  center 
of  gold  production  in  the  Katanga,  and  connect  up  with 
the  Katanga  Railway  just  north  of  Kambove.  It  is 
really  a  link  in  the  Cape-to-Cairo  system  and  when  com- 
pleted will  shorten  the  freight  haul  from  the  copper 
fields  to  London  by  three  thousand  miles,  as  compared 
with  the  present  Bier  a  itinerary. 

There  is  every  indication  that  the  Katanga  will  justify 
the  early  confidence  that  Williams  had  in  it  and  become 
one  of  the  great  copper-producing  centers  of  the  world. 
Experts  with  whom  I  have  talked  in  America  believe 
that  it  can  in  time  reach  a  maximum  output  of  150,000 
tons  a  year.  The  ores  are  of  a  very  high  gi'ade  and  since 
the  Union  Miniere  owns  more  than  one  hundred  mines, 
of  which  only  six  or  seven  are  partially  developed,  the 
future  seems  safe. 

Copper  is  only  one  phase  of  the  Katanga  mineral 
treasure.  Coal,  iron,  and  tin  have  not  only  been  discov- 


152  AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

ered  in  quantity  but  are  being  mined  commercially.  Oil- 
shale  is  plentiful  on  the  Congo  River  near  Ponthierville 
and  good  indications  of  oil  are  recorded  in  other  places. 
The  discovery  of  oil  in  Central  Africa  would  have  a 
great  influence  on  the  developent  of  transportation  since 
it  would  supply  fuel  for  steamers,  railways,  and  motor 
transport.  There  is  already  a  big  oil  production  in 
Angola  and  there  is  little  doubt  that  an  important  field 
awaits  development  in  the  Congo. 

It  is  not  generally  realized  that  Africa  today  pro- 
duces the  three  most  valuable  of  all  known  minerals  in 
the  largest  quantities,  or  has  the  biggest  potentialities. 
The  Rand  yields  more  than  fifty  per  cent  of  the  entire 
gold  supply  and  ranks  as  the  most  valuable  of  all  gold 
fields.  Ninety-five  per  cent  of  the  diamond  output 
comes  from  the  Kimberley  and  associated  mines,  Ger- 
man South- West  Africa,  and  the  Congo.  The  Katanga 
contains  probably  the  greatest  reserve  of  copper  in 
existence.  Now  you  can  see  why  the  eye  of  the  imiverse 
is  being  focused  on  this  region. 


II 

WHEN  I  left  Elizabethville  I  bade  farewell 
to  the  comforts  of  life.  I  mean,  for  ex- 
ample, such  things  as  ice,  bath-tubs,  and 
running  water.  There  is  enough  water  in  the  Congo 
to  satisfy  the  most  ardent  teetotaler  but  unfortunately 
it  does  not  come  out  of  faucets.  Most  of  it  flows  in 
rivers,  but  very  little  of  it  gets  inside  the  population, 
white  or  otherwise. 

Speaking  of  water  brings  to  mind  one  of  the  useful 
results  of  such  a  trip  as  mine.  Isolation  in  the  African 
wilds  gives  you  a  new  appreciation  of  what  in  civiliza- 
tion is  regarded  as  the  commonplace  things.  Take  the 
simple  matter  of  a  hair-cut.  There  are  only  two  barbers 
in  the  whole  Congo.  One  is  at  Elizabethville  and  the 
other  at  Kinshassa,  on  the  Lower  Congo,  nearly  two 
thousand  miles  away.  My  locks  were  not  shorn  for  seven 
weeks.  I  had  to  do  what  little  trimming  there  was  done 
with  a  safety  razor  and  it  involved  quite  an  acrobatic 
feat.  Take  shaving.  The  water  in  most  of  the  Congo 
rivers  is  dirty  and  full  of  germs.  More  than  once  I 
lathered  my  face  with  mineral  water  out  of  a  bottle. 
The  Congo  River  proper  is  a  muddy  brown.  For 
washing  purposes  it  must  be  treated  with  a  few  tablets 
of  permanganate  of  potassium  which  colours  it  red.  It 
is  like  bathing  in  blood. 

Since  my  journey  from  Katanga  onward  was  through 
the  heart  of  Africa,  perhaps  it  may  be  worth  while  to 
tell  briefly  of  the  equipment  required  for  such  an  ex- 

153 


154         AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

pedition.  Although  I  travelled  for  the  most  part  in 
the  greatest  comfort  that  the  Colony  afforded,  it  was 
necessary  to  prepare  for  any  emergency.  In  the  Congo 
you  must  be  self-sufficient  and  absolutely  independent 
of  the  country.  This  means  that  you  carry  your  own 
bed  and  bedding  (usually  a  folding  camp-bed),  bath- 
tub, food,  medicine-chest,  and  cooking  utensils. 

No  detail  was  more  essential  than  the  mosquito  net 
under  which  I  slept  every  night  for  nearly  four  months. 
Insects  are  the  bane  of  Africa.  The  mosquito  carries 
malaria,  and  the  tsetse  fly  is  the  harbinger  of  that  most 
terrible  of  diseases,  sleeping  sickness.  Judging  from 
personal  experience  nearly  every  conceivable  kind  of 
biting  bug  infests  the  Congo.  One  of  the  most  tena- 
cious and  troublesome  of  the  little  visitors  is  the  jigger, 
which  has  an  uncomfortable  habit  of  seeking  a  soft 
spot  under  the  toe-nail.  Once  lodged  it  is  extremely 
difficult  to  get  him  out.  These  pests  are  mainly  found 
in  sandy  soil  and  give  the  Negroes  who  walk  about  bare- 
footed unending  trouble. 

No  less  destructive  is  the  dazzling  sim.  Five  minutes 
exposure  to  it  without  a  helmet  means  a  prostration 
and  twenty  minutes  spells  death.  Stanley  called  the 
country  so  inseparably  associated  with  his  name  "Fatal 
Africa,"  but  he  did  not  mean  the  death  that  lay  in  the 
murderous  black  hand.  He  had  in  mind  the  thousand 
and  one  dangers  that  beset  the  stranger  who  does  not 
observe  the  strictest  rules  of  health  and  diet.  From  the 
moment  of  arrival  the  body  undergoes  an  entirely  new 
experience.  Men  succumb  because  they  foolishly  think 
they  can  continue  the  habits  of  civilization.  Alcohol 
is  the  curse  of  all  the  hot  countries.  The  wise  man 
never  takes  a  drink  until  the  sun  sets  and  then,  if  he 
continues  to  be  wise,  he  imbibes  only  in  moderation. 


THE    CONGO    TODAY  155 

The  morning  "peg"  and  the  lunch-time  cocktail  have 
undermined  more  health  in  the  tropics  than  all  the  flies 
and  mosquitoes  combined. 

The  Duke  of  Wellington  recommended  a  formula 
for  India  which  may  well  be  applied  to  the  Congo.  The 
doughty  old  warrior  once  said: 

I  know  but  one  recipe  for  good  health  in  this  country,  and 
that  is  to  live  moderately,  to  drink  little  or  no  wine,  to  use 
exercise,  to  keep  the  mind  employed,  and,  if  possible,  to  keep 
in  good  humour  with  the  world.  The  last  is  the  most  difficult, 
for  as  you  have  often  observed,  there  is  scarcely  a  good- 
tempered  man  in  India. 

If  a  man  will  practice  moderation  in  all  things,  take 
five  grains  of  quinine  every  day,  exercise  whenever  it 
is  possible,  and  keep  his  body  clean,  he  has  little  to  fear 
from  the  ordinary  diseases  of  a  country  like  the  Congo. 
It  is  one  of  the  ironies  of  civilization  that  after  passing 
unscathed  through  all  the  fever  country,  I  caught  a  cold 
the  moment  I  got  back  to  steam-heat  and  all  the  com- 
forts of  home. 

No  one  would  think  of  using  ordinary  luggage  in  the 
Congo.  Everything  must  be  packed  and  conveyed  in 
metal  boxes  similar  to  the  uniform  cases  used  by  British 
officers  in  Egypt  and  India.  This  is  because  the  white 
ant  is  the  prize  destroyer  of  property  throughout  Africa. 
He  cuts  through  leather  and  wood  with  the  same  ease 
that  a  Southern  Negro's  teeth  lacerate  watermelon. 
Leave  a  pair  of  shoes  on  the  ground  over  night  and  you 
will  find  them  riddled  in  the  morning.  These  ants  eat 
away  floors  and  sometimes  cause  the  collapse  of  houses 
by  wearing  away  the  wooden  supports.  Another  fre- 
quent guest  is  the  driver  ant,  which  travels  in  armies 
and  frequently  takes  complete  possession  of  a  house. 


156         AN   AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

It  destroys  all  the  vermin  but  the  human  inmates  must 
beat  a  retreat  while  the  process  goes  on. 

Since  my  return  many  people  have  asked  me  what 
books  I  read  in  the  Congo.  The  necessity  for  them  was 
apparent.  I  had  more  than  three  months  of  constant 
travelling,  often  alone,  and  for  the  most  part  on  small 
river  boats  where  there  is  no  deck  space  for  exercise. 
Mail  arrives  irregularly  and  there  were  no  newspapers. 
After  one  or  two  days  the  unceasing  panorama  of  trop- 
ical forests,  native  villages,  and  naked  savages  becomes 
monotonous.  Even  the  hippopotami  which  you  see  in 
large  numbers,  the  omnipresent  crocodile,  and  the  occa- 
sional wild  elephant,  cease  to  amuse.  You  are  forced  to 
fall  back  on  that  unfailing  friend  and  companion,  a 
good  book. 

I  therefore  carried  with  me  the  following  books  in 
handy  volume  size:  —  Montaigne's  Essays,  Palgrave's 
Golden  Treasury  of  English  Verse,  Lockhart's  Life  of 
Napoleon,  Autobiography  of  Cellini,  Don  Quixote,  The 
Three  Musketeers,  Lorna  Doone,  Prescott's  Conquest 
of  Mexico  and  The  Conquest  of  Peru,  Les  Miserables, 
Vanity  Fair,  Life  and  Writings  of  Benjamin  Franklin, 
Pepys'  Diary,  Carlyle's  French  Revolution,  The  Last 
of  the  Mohicans,  Westward  Ho,  Bleak  House,  The 
Pickwick  Papers,  A  Tale  of  Two  Cities,  and  Tolstoi's 
War  and  Peace.  When  these  became  exhausted  I  was 
hard  put  for  reading  matter.  At  a  post  on  the  Kasai 
River  the  only  English  book  I  could  find  was  Arnold 
Bennett's  The  Pretty  Lady,  which  had  faPen  into 
the  hands  of  an  official,  who  was  trying  to  learn  English 
with  it.    It  certainly  gave  him  a  hectic  start. 

Then,  too,  there  was  the  eternal  servant  problem,  no 
less  vexing  in  that  land  of  servants  than  elsewhere.  I 
had  cabled  to  Homer  to  engage  me  two  personal  ser- 


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THE    CONGO    TODAY  157 

vants  or  "boys"  as  they  are  called  in  Africa.  When  I 
got  to  Elizabethville  I  found  that  he  had  secured  two. 
In  addition  to  Swahili,  the  main  native  tongue  in  those 
parts,  one  spoke  English  and  the  other  French,  the  offi- 
cial language  in  the  Congo.  I  did  not  like  the  looks  of 
the  English-speaking  barbarian  so  I  took  a  chance  on 
Number  Two,  whose  name  was  Gerome.  He  was  a 
so-called  "educated"  native.  I  was  to  find  from 
sad  experience  that  his  "education"  was  largely  in  the 
direction  of  indolence  and  inefficiency.  I  thought  that 
by  having  a  boy  with  whom  I  had  to  speak  French  I 
could  improve  my  command  of  the  language.  Later  on 
I  realized  my  mistake  because  my  French  is  a  non- 
conductor of  profanity. 

Gerome  had  a  wife.  In  the  Congo,  where  all  wives 
are  bought,  the  consort  constitutes  the  husband's  for- 
tune, being  cook,  tiller  of  the  ground,  beast-of -burden 
and  slave  generally.  I  had  no  desire  to  incumber  myself 
with  this  black  Venus,  so  I  made  Gerome  promise  that 
he  would  not  take  her  along.  I  left  him  behind  at 
Elizabethville,  for  I  proceeded  to  Fungurume  with 
Horner  by  automobile.  He  was  to  follow  by  train  with 
my  luggage  and  have  the  private  car,  which  I  had 
chartered  for  the  journey  to  Bukama,  ready  for  me  on 
my  arrival.  When  I  showed  up  at  Fungurume  the 
first  thing  I  saw  was  Gerome's  wife,  with  her  ample 
proportions  swathed  in  scarlet  calico,  sunning  herself 
on  the  platform  of  the  car.  He  could  not  bring  himself 
to  cook  his  own  food  although  willing  enough  to  cook 
mine. 

I  paid  Gerome  forty  Belgian  francs  a  month,  which, 
at  the  rate  of  exchange  then  prevailing,  was  considerably 
less  than  three  dollars.  I  also  had  to  give  him  a  weekly 
allowance  of  five  francs  (about  thirty  cents)  for  his  food. 


158         AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

To  the  American  employer  of  servants  these  figures  will 
be  somewhat  illuminating  and  startling. 

One  more  human  interest  detail  before  we  move  on. 
In  Africa  every  white  man  gets  a  name  from  the  natives. 
This  appellation  usually  expresses  his  chief  character- 
istic. The  first  title  fastened  on  me  was  "Bwana  Cha 
Cha,"  which  means  "The  Master  Who  is  Quick." 
When  I  first  heard  this  name  I  thought  it  was  a  reflec- 
tion on  my  appetite  because  "Cha  Cha"  is  pronounced 
"Chew  Chew."  Subsequently,  in  the  Upper  Congo  and 
the  Kasai  I  was  called  "Mafutta  Mingi"  which  means 
"Much  Fat."  I  must  explain  in  self-defense  that  in  the 
Congo  I  ate  much  more  than  usual,  first  because  some- 
thing in  the  atmosphere  makes  you  hungry,  and  second, 
a  good  appetite  is  always  an  indication  of  health  in  the 
tropics. 

Still  another  name  that  I  bore  was  "Tala  Tola"  which 
means  spectacles  in  practically  all  the  Congo  dialects. 
There  are  nearly  two  hundred  tribes  and  each  has  a  dis- 
tinctive tongue.  In  many  sections  that  I  visited  the 
natives  had  never  seen  a  pair  of  tortoise  shell  glasses 
such  as  I  wear  during  the  day.  The  children  fled  from 
me  shrieking  in  terror  and  thinking  that  I  was  a  sor- 
cerer. Even  gifts  of  food,  the  one  universal  passport 
to  the  native  heart,  failed  to  calm  their  fears. 

The  Congo  native,  let  me  add,  is  a  queer  character. 
The  more  I  saw  of  him,  the  greater  became  my  admira- 
tion for  King  Leopold.  In  his  present  state  the  only 
rule  must  be  a  strong  rule.  No  one  would  ever  think  of 
thanking  a  native  for  a  service.  It  would  be  misunder- 
stood because  the  black  man  out  there  mistakes  kindness 
for  weakness.  You  must  be  firm  but  just.  Now  you 
can  see  why  explorers,  upon  emerging  from  long  stays 
in  the  jungle,  appear  to  be  rude  and  ill-mannered.    It  is 


THE    CONGO    TODAY  159 

simply  because  they  had  to  be  harsh  and  at  times  mi- 
feeling,  and  it  becomes  a  habit.  Stanley,  for  example, 
was  often  called  a  boor  and  a  brute  when  in  reality  he 
was  merely  hiding  a  fine  nature  behind  the  armour  neces- 
sary to  resist  native  imposition  and  worse. 


Ill 

THE  private  car  on  which  I  travelled  from 
Fungurume  to  Bukama  was  my  final  taste  of 
luxury.  When  Horner  waved  me  a  good-bye 
from  his  automobile  and  the  creaky,  jolty  train  started 
north  I  realized  that  I  was  divorcing  myself  from  com- 
fort and  companionship.  In  thirty  hours  I  was  in  sun- 
scorched  Bukama,  the  southern  rail-head  of  the  Cape- 
to-Cairo  Route  and  my  real  jumping-off  place  before 
plunging  into  the  mysteries  of  Central  Africa. 

Here  begins  the  historic  Lualaba,  which  is  the  initial 
link  in  the  almost  endless  chain  of  the  Congo  River. 
I  at  once  went  aboard  the  first  of  the  boats  which  were 
to  be  my  habitation  intermittently  for  so  many  weeks. 
It  was  the  "Louis  Cousin,"  a  150-ton  vessel  and  a  fair 
example  of  the  draft  which  provides  the  principal  means 
of  transportation  in  the  Congo.  Practically  all  transit 
not  on  the  hoof,  so  to  speak,  in  the  Colony  is  by  water. 
There  are  more  than  twelve  thousand  miles  of  rivers 
navigable  for  steamers  and  twice  as  many  more  acces- 
sible for  canoes  and  launches.  Hence  the  river-boat  is 
a  staple,  and  a  picturesque  one  at  that. 

The  "Louis  Cousin"  was  typical  of  her  kind  both  in 
appointment,  or  rather  the  lack  of  it,  and  human  interest 
details.  Like  all  her  sisters  she  resembles  the  small 
Ohio  River  boats  that  I  had  seen  in  my  boyhood  at 
Louisville.  All  Congo  steam  craft  must  be  stem- 
wheelers,  first  because  they  usually  haul  barges  on 
either  side,  and  secondly  because  there  are  so  many  sand- 
banks.   The  few  cabins  —  all  you  get  is  the  bare  room  — 

160 


THE    CONGO    TODAY  161 

are  on  the  upper  deck,  which  is  the  white  man's  domain, 
while  the  boiler  and  freight  —  human  and  otherwise  — 
are  on  the  lower.  This  is  the  bailiwick  of  the  black. 
These  boats  always  stop  at  night  for  wood,  the  only 
fuel,  and  the  natives  are  compelled  to  go  ashore  and  sleep 
on  the  bank. 

The  Congo  river-boat  is  a  combination  of  fortress, 
hotel,  and  menagerie.  Like  the  "accommodation"  train 
in  our  own  Southern  States,  it  is  most  obliging  because 
it  will  stop  anywhere  to  enable  a  passenger  to  get  off 
and  do  a  little  shopping,  or  permit  the  captain  to  take 
a  meal  ashore  with  a  friendly  State  official  yearning  for 
human  society. 

The  river  captain  is  a  versatile  individual  for  he  is 
steward,  doctor,  postman,  purveyor  of  news,  and  dic- 
tator in  general.  He  alone  makes  the  schedule  of  each 
trip,  arriving  and  departing  at  will.  Time  in  the  Congo 
counts  for  naught.  It  is  in  truth  the  land  of  leisure. 
For  the  man  who  wants  to  move  fast,  water  travel  is  a 
nightmare.  Accustomed  as  I  was  to  swift  transport,  I 
spent  a  year  every  day. 

The  skipper  of  the  "Louis  Cousin"  was  no  exception 
to  his  kind.  He  was  a  big  Norwegian  named  Behn,  — 
many  of  his  colleagues  are  Scandinavians,  —  and  he 
had  spent  eighteen  years  in  the  Congo.  He  knew  every 
one  of  the  thousand  nooks,  turns,  snags  and  sand-bars 
of  the  Lualaba.  One  of  the  first  things  that  impressed 
me  was  the  uncanny  ingenuity  with  which  all  the  Congo 
boats  are  navigated  through  what  seems  at  first  glance 
to  be  a  mass  of  vegetation  and  obstruction. 

The  bane  of  trafiic  is  the  sand-bar,  which  on  account 
of  the  swift  currents  everywhere,  is  an  eternally  chang- 
ing quantity.  Hence  a  native  is  constantly  engaged 
in  taking  soundings  with  a  long  stick.    You  can  hear 


162         AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

his  not  unmusical  voice,  from  the  moment  the  boat 
starts  until  she  ties  up  for  the  night.  The  native  word 
for  water  is  "mia/*  Whenever  I  heard  the  cry  "mia 
mitani''  I  knew  that  we  were  all  right  because  that 
meant  five  feet  of  water.  With  the  exception  of  the 
Congo  River  no  boat  can  draw  more  than  three  feet  be- 
cause in  the  dry  season  even  the  mightiest  of  streams 
declines  to  an  almost  incredibly  low  level. 

My  white  fellow  passengers  on  the  "Louis  Cousin" 
were  mostly  Belgians  on  their  way  home  by  way  of 
Stanleyville  and  the  Congo  River,  after  years  of  service 
in  the  Colony.  We  all  ate  together  in  the  tiny  dining 
saloon  forward  with  the  captain,  who  usually  provides 
the  "chop,"  as  it  is  called.  I  now  made  the  acquaintance 
of  goat  as  an  article  of  food.  The  young  nanny  is  not 
undesirable  as  an  occasional  novelty  but  when  she  is 
served  up  to  you  every  day,  it  becomes  a  trifle  mo- 
notonous. 

The  one  rival  of  the  goat  in  the  Congo  daily  menu  is 
the  chicken,  the  mainstay  of  the  country.  I  know  a 
man  who  spent  six  years  in  the  Congo  and  he  kept  a 
record  of  every  fowl  he  consumed.  When  he  started 
for  home  the  total  registered  exactly  three  thousand. 
It  is  no  uncommon  experience.  Occasionally  a  friendly 
hunter  brought  antelope  or  buffalo  aboard  but  goat  and 
fowl,  reinforced  by  tinned  goods  and  an  occasional  eggy 
constituted  the  bill  of  fare.  You  may  wonder,  perhaps, 
that  in  a  country  which  is  a  continuous  chicken-coop, 
there  should  be  a  scarcity  of  eggs.  The  answer  lies  in 
the  fact  that  during  the  last  few  years  the  natives  have 
conceived  a  sudden  taste  for  eggs.  Formerly  they 
were  afraid  to  eat  them. 

Of  course,  there  was  always  an  abundance  of  fruit. 
You  can  get  pineapples,  grape  fruit,  oranges,  bananas 


< 


THE    CONGO    TODAY  163 

and  a  first  cousin  of  the  cantaloupe,  called  the  pei  pet, 
which  when  sprinkled  with  lime  juice  is  most  delicious. 
Bananas  can  be  purchased  for  five  cents  a  bunch  of  one 
hundred.  It  is  about  the  only  cheap  thing  in  the  Congo 
except  servants. 

Not  all  my  fellow  passengers  were  desirable  compan- 
ions. At  Bukana  five  naked  savages,  all  chained  to- 
gether by  the  neck,  were  brought  aboard  in  charge  of 
three  native  soldiers.  When  I  asked  the  captain  who 
and  what  they  were  he  replied,  "They  are  cannibals. 
They  ate  two  of  their  fellow  tribesmen  back  in  the 
jungle  last  week  and  they  are  going  down  the  river  to 
be  tried."  These  were  the  first  eaters  of  human  flesh 
that  I  saw  in  the  Congo.  One  conspicious  detail  was 
their  teeth  which  were  all  filed  down  to  sharp  points. 
I  later  discovered  that  these  wolf  teeth,  as  they  might  be 
called,  are  common  to  all  the  Congo  cannibals.  The 
punishment  for  cannibalism  is  death,  although  every 
native,  whatever  his  offence,  is  given  a  trial  by  the  Bel- 
gian authorities. 

So  far  as  employing  the  white  man  as  an  article  of  diet 
is  concerned,  cannibalism  has  ceased  in  the  Congo. 
Some  of  the  tribes,  however,  still  regard  the  flesh  of  their 
own  kind  as  the  last  word  in  edibles.  The  practice  must 
be  carried  on  in  secret.  To  have  partaken  of  the  human 
body  has  long  been  regarded  as  an  act  which  endows 
the  consumer  with  almost  supernatural  powers.  The 
cannibal  has  always  justified  his  procedure  in  a  char- 
acteristic way.  When  the  early  explorers  and  mission- 
aries protested  against  the  barbarous  performance 
they  were  invarably  met  with  this  reply,  "You  eat  fowl 
and  goats  and  we  eat  men.  What  is  the  difference?" 
There  seems  to  have  been  a  particular  lure  in  what  the 
native  designated  as  "food  that  once  talked." 


164          AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

In  the  days  when  cannibalism  was  rampant,  the  liver 
of  the  white  man  was  looked  upon  as  a  special  delicacy 
for  the  reason  that  it  was  supposed  to  transmit  the 
knowledge  and  courage  of  its  former  owner.  There  was 
also  a  tradition  that  once  having  eaten  the  heart  of  the 
white,  no  harm  could  come  to  the  barbarian  who  per- 
formed this  amiable  act.  Although  these  odious  prac- 
tices have  practically  ceased  except  in  isolated  instances, 
the  Congo  native,  in  boasting  of  his  strength,  constantly 
speaks  of  his  liver,  and  not  of  his  heart. 

It  was  on  the  Lualaba,  after  the  boat  had  tied  up  for 
the  night,  that  I  caught  the  first  whisper  of  the  jungle. 
In  Africa  Nature  is  in  her  frankest  mood  but  she  ex- 
presses herself  in  subdued  tones.  All  my  life  I  had 
read  of  the  witchery  of  these  equatorial  places,  but  no 
description  is  ever  adequate.  Yoji  must  live  with  them 
to  catch  the  magic.  No  painter,  for  instance,  can  trans- 
late to  canvas  the  elusive  and  ever-changing  verdure 
of  the  dense  forests  under  the  brilliant  tropical  sun, 
nor  can  those  elements  of  mystery  with  their  suggestion 
of  wild  bird  and  beast  that  lurk  everywhere  at  night, 
be  reproduced.  Life  flows  on  like  a  moving  dream  that 
is  exotic,  enervating,  yet  intoxicating. 

Accustomed  as  I  was  to  dense  populations,  the  lone- 
liness of  the  Lualaba  was  weird  and  haunting.  On  the 
Mississippi,  Ohio,  and  Hudson  rivers  in  America  and 
on  the  Seine,  the  Thames,  and  the  Spree  in  Europe, 
you  see  congested  human  life  and  hear  a  vast  din.  In 
Africa,  and  with  the  possible  exception  of  some  parts  of 
the  Nile,  Nature  reigns  with  almost  undisputed  sway. 
Settlements  appear  at  rare  intervals.  You  only  en- 
counter an  occasional  native  canoe.  The  steamers  fre- 
quently tie  up  at  night  at  some  sand-bank  and  you  fall 
asleep  invested  by  an  uncanny  silence. 


THE    CONGO   TODAY  165 

I  spent  six  days  on  the  Lualaba  where  we  made  many 
stops  to  take  on  and  put  off  freight.  Many  of  these 
halts  were  at  wood-posts  where  our  supply  of  fuel  was 
renewed.  At  one  post  I  found  a  lonely  Scotch  trader 
who  had  been  in  the  Congo  fifteen  years.  Every  night 
he  puts  on  his  kilts  and  parades  through  the  native 
village  playing  the  bagpipes.  It  is  his  one  touch  with 
home.  At  another  place  I  had  a  brief  visit  with  another 
Scotchman,  a  veteran  of  the  World  War,  who  had 
established  a  prosperous  plantation  and  who  goes  about 
in  a  khaki  kilt,  much  to  the  joy  of  the  natives,  who  see 
in  his  bare  knees  a  kinship  with  themselves. 

At  Kabalo  I  touched  the  war  zone.  This  post  marks 
the  beginning  of  the  railway  that  runs  eastward  to  Lake 
Tanganyika  and  which  Rhodes  included  in  one  of  his 
Cape-to-Cairo  routes.  Along  this  road  travelled  the 
thousands  of  Congo  fighting  men  on  their  way  to  the 
scene  of  hostilities  in  German  East  Africa. 

When  the  Great  War  broke  out  the  Belgian  Colonial 
Government  held  that  the  Berlin  Treaty  of  1885,  en- 
titled "A  General  Act  Relating  to  Civilization  in 
Africa"  and  prohibiting  warfare  in  the  Congo  basin, 
should  be  enforced.  This  treaty  gave  birth  to  the  Congo 
Free  State  and  made  it  an  international  and  peaceful 
area  under  Belgian  sovereignty.  Following  their  usual 
fashion  the  Germans  looked  upon  this  document  as  a 
"scrap  of  paper"  and  attached  Lukuga.  This  forced 
the  Belgian  Congo  into  the  conflict.  About  20,000 
native  troops  were  mobilized  and  under  the  command 
of  General  Tambeur,  who  is  now  Vice-Governor  Ger- 
eral  of  the  Katanga,  co-operated  with  the  British 
throughout  the  entire  East  African  campaign.  The 
Belgians  captured  Tabora,  one  of  the  German  strong- 
holds, and  helped  to  clear  the  Teuton  out  of  the  country. 


166         AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

Lake  Tanganyika  was  the  scene  of  one  of  the  most 
brilliant  and  spectacular  naval  battles  of  the  war.  Two 
British  motor  launches,  which  were  conveyed  in  sec- 
tions all  the  way  from  England,  sank  a  German  gunboat 
and  disabled  another,  thus  purging  those  waters  of  the 
German.  The  lake  was  of  great  strategic  importance 
for  the  transport  of  food  and  munitions  for  the  Allied 
troops  in  German  East  Africa.  It  is  one  of  the 
loveliest  inland  bodies  of  water  in  the  world  for  it  is 
fringed  with  wooded  heights  and  is  navigable  through- 
out its  entire  length  of  four  hundred  miles.  Ujiji,  on 
its  eastern  shore,  is  the  memorable  spot  where  Stanley 
found  Livingstone.  The  house  where  the  illustrious 
missionary  lived  still  stands,  and  is  an  object  of  venera- 
tion both  for  black  and  white  visitors. 

From  Kabalo  I  proceeded  to  Kongolo,  where  navi- 
gation on  the  Lualaba  temporarily  ends.  It  is  the  usual 
Congo  settlement  with  the  official  residence  of  the  Com- 
missaire  of  the  District,  office  of  the  Native  Commis- 
sioner, and  a  dozen  stores.  It  is  also  the  southern  rail- 
dead  of  the  Chemin  de  Fer  Grands  Lacs,  which  extends 
to  Stanleyville.  Early  in  the  morning  I  boarded  what 
looked  to  me  like  a  toy  train,  for  it  was  tinier  than  any 
I  had  ever  seen  before,  and  started  for  Kindu.  The 
journey  occupies  two  days  and  traverses  a  highly 
Arabized  section. 

Back  in  the  days  when  Tippo  Tib,  the  friend  of 
Stanley,  was  king  of  the  Arab  slave  traders,  this  area 
was  his  hunting  ground.  Many  of  the  natives  are  Mo- 
hammedans and  wear  turbans  and  long  flowing  robes. 
Their  cleanliness  is  in  sharp  contrast  with  the  lack  of 
sanitary  precautions  observed  by  the  average  unclothed 
native.  The  only  blacks  who  wash  every  day  in  the 
Congo  are  those  who  live  on  the  rivers.    The  favorite 


THE    CONGO    TODAY  167 

method  of  cleansing  in  the  bush  country  is  to  scrape  off 
a  week's  or  a  month's  accumulation  of  mud  with  a  stick 
or  a  piece  of  glass. 

In  the  Congo  the  trains,  like  the  boats,  stop  for  the 
night.  Various  causes  are  responsible  for  the  procedure. 
In  the  early  days  of  railroading  elephants  and  other 
wild  animals  frequently  tore  up  the  tracks.  Another 
contributory  reason  is  that  the  carriages  are  only  built 
for  day  travel.  Native  houses  are  provided  for  the 
traveller  at  different  points  on  the  line.  Since  everyone 
carries  his  own  bed  it  is  easy  to  establish  sleeping 
quarters  without  delay  or  inconvenience.  On  this  par- 
ticular trip  I  slept  at  Malela,  in  the  house  ordinarily 
occupied  by  the  Chief  Engineer  of  the  line.  The  Min- 
ister of  the  Colonies  had  used  it  the  night  before  and 
it  was  scrupulously  clean.  I  must  admit  that  I  have  had 
greater  discomfort  in  metropolitan  hotels. 

I  was  now  in  the  almost  absolute  domain  of  the  native. 
The  only  white  men  that  I  encountered  were  an  occa- 
sional priest  and  a  still  more  occasional  trader.  At 
Kibombo  the  train  stopped  for  the  mail.  When  I  got 
out  to  stretch  my  legs  I  saw  a  man  and  a  woman  who 
looked  unmistakably  American.  The  man  had  Texas 
written  all  over  him  for  he  was  tall  and  lank  and  looked 
as  if  he  had  spent  his  life  on  the  ranges.  He  came 
toward  me  smiling  and  said,  "The  Minister  of  the  Colo- 
nies was  through  here  yesterday  in  a  special  train  and 
he  said  that  an  American  journalist  was  following  close 
behind,  so  I  came  down  to  see  you."  The  man  proved 
to  be  J.  G.  Campbell,  who  had  come  to  install  an  Ameri- 
can cotton  gin  nine  kilometers  from  where  we  were 
standing.  His  wife  was  with  him  and  she  was  the  only 
white  woman  within  two  hundred  miles. 


168         AN    AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

Campbell  is  a  link  with  one  of  the  new  Congo  in- 
dustries, which  is  cotton  cultivation.  The  whole  area 
between  Kongolo  and  Stanleyville,  three-fourths  of 
which  is  one  vast  tropical  forest,  has  immense  stretches 
ideally  adapted  for  cotton  growing.  The  Belgian  Gov- 
ernment has  laid  out  experimental  plantations  and  they 
are  thriving.  In  1919  four  thousand  acres  were  culti- 
vated in  the  Manyema  district,  six  thousand  in  the  San- 
kuru-Kasai  region,  and  six  hundred  in  the  Lomami  terri- 
tory. Altogether  the  Colony  produced  6,000,000  pounds 
of  the  raw  staple  in  1920  and  some  of  it  was  grown  by 
natives  who  are  being  taught  the  art.  The  Congo 
Cotton  Company  has  been  formed  at  Brussels  with  a 
capitalization  of  6,000,000  francs,  to  exploit  the  new 
industry,  which  is  bound  to  be  an  important  factor  in 
the  development  of  the  Congo.  It  shows  that  the  ruth- 
less exploitation  of  the  earlier  days  is  succeeded  by 
scientific  and  constructive  expansion. 

Campbell's  experience  in  setting  up  his  American 
gin  discloses  the  principal  need  of  the  Congo  today 
which  is  adequate  transport.  Between  its  arrival  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Congo  River  and  Kibombo  the  mass  of 
machinery  was  trans-shipped  exactly  four  times,  alter- 
nately changing  from  rail  to  river.  At  Kibombo  the 
550,000  pounds  of  metal  had  to  be  carried  on  the  heads 
of  natives  to  the  scene  of  operations.  In  the  Congo 
practically  every  ton  of  merchandise  must  be  moved  by 
man  power  —  the  average  load  is  sixty  pounds  — 
through  the  greater  part  of  its  journey. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  of  the  day  which  marked  the 
encounter  with  the  Campbells  I  reached  Kindu,  where 
navigation  on  the  Lualaba  is  resumed  again.  By  this 
time  you  will  have  realized  something  of  the  difficulty 
of  travelling  in  this  part  of  the  world.    It  was  my  third 


ff   } 


■    < 

Hi 

;  § 

CL, 

i     W 


THE    CONGO    TODAY  169 

change  since  Bukama  and  more  were  to  come  before  I 
reached  the  Lower  Congo. 

At  Kindu  I  had  a  rare  piece  of  luck.  I  fell  in  with 
Louis  Franck,  the  Belgian  Minister  of  the  Colonies,  to 
whom  I  had  a  letter  of  introduction,  and  who  was  mak- 
ing a  tour  of  inspection  of  the  Congo.  He  had  landed 
at  Mombassa,  crossed  British  East  Africa,  visited  the 
new  Belgian  possessions  of  Urundi  and  Ruanda  which 
are  spoils  of  war,  and  made  his  way  to  Kabalo  from 
Lake  Tanganyika.  He  asked  me  to  accompany  him 
to  Stanleyville  as  his  guest.  I  gladly  accepted  because, 
aside  from  the  personal  compensation  afforded  by  his 
society,  it  meant  immunity  from  worry  about  the  river 
and  train  connections. 

Franck  represents  the  new  type  of  Colonial  Minister. 
Instead  of  being  a  musty  bureaucrat,  as  so  many  are, 
he  is  a  live,  alert  progressive  man  of  affairs  who  played 
a  big  part  in  the  late  war.    To  begin  with,  he  is  one  of  ^ 
the  foremost  admiralty  lawyers  of  Europe.    When  the 
Germans  occupied  Belgium  he  at  once  became  conspic-       ; 
uous.    He  resisted  the  Teutonic  scheme  to  separate  the       4 
French  and  Flemish  sections  of  the  ravaged  countiy^^ 
After  the  investment  of  Antwerp,  his  native  place,  ac^^ 
companied  by  the  Burgomaster  and  the  Spanish  Min- 
ister, he  went  to  the  German  Headquarters  and  made 
the  arrangement  by  which  the  city  was  saved  from 
destruction  by  bombardment.     He  delayed  this  parley 
sufficiently  to  enable  the  Belgian  Army  to  escape  to  the 
Yser.      Subsequently  his   activities   on   behalf   of   his 
countrymen  made  him  so  distasef  ul  to  the  Germans  that 
he  was  imprisoned  in  Germany  for  nearly  a  year.    For 
two  months  of  this  time  he  shared  the  noble  exile  of 
Monsieur  Max,  the  heroic  Burgomaster  of  Brussels. 

I  now  became  an  annex  of  what  amounted  to  a  royal 


170         AN   AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

progress.  To  the  Belgian  colonial  official  and  to  the 
native,  Franck  incarnated  a  sort  of  All  Highest.  In 
the  Congo  all  functionaries  are  called  "Bula  Matadi," 
which  means  "The  Rock  Breaker."  It  is  the  name 
originally  bestowed  on  Stanley  when  he  dynamited  a 
road  through  the  rocks  of  the  Lower  Congo.  Franck, 
however,  was  a  super  "Bula  Matadi."  We  had  a 
special  boat,  the  "Baron  Delbecke,"  a  one  hundred 
ton  craft  somewhat  similar  to  the  "Louis  Cousin"  but 
much  cleaner,  for  she  had  been  scrubbed  up  for  the 
journey.  The  Minister,  his  military  aide,  secretary  and 
doctor  filled  the  cabins,  so  I  slept  in  a  tent  set  up  on  the 
lower  deck. 

With  flags  flying  and  thousands  of  natives  on  the 
shore  yelling  and  beating  tom-toms,  we  started  down 
the  Lualaba.  The  country  between  Kindu  and  Pon- 
thierville,  our  first  objective,  is  thickly  populated  and 
important  settlements  dot  the  banks.  Wherever  we 
stopped  the  native  troops  were  turned  out  and  there  were 
long  speeches  of  welcome  from  the  local  dignitaries. 
Franck  shook  as  many  black  and  white  hands  as  an 
American  Presidential  candidate  would  in  a  swing 
around  the  circle.  I  accompanied  him  ashore  on  all 
of  these  state  visits  and  it  gave  me  an  excellent  oppor- 
tunity to  see  the  many  types  of  natives  in  their  Sunday 
clothes,  which  largely  consist  of  no  clothes  at  all.  This 
applies  especially  to  the  female  sex,  which  in  the  Congo 
reverses  Kiphng's  theory  because  they  are  less  deadly 
than  the  male. 

At  Lowa  occurred  a  significant  episode.  This  place 
is  the  center  of  an  immense  native  population,  but  there 
is  only  one  white  resident,  the  usual  Belgium  state  offi- 
cial. We  climbed  the  hill  to  his  house,  where  thirty  of 
the  leading  chiefs,  wearing  the  tin  medal  which  the 


THE    CONGO   TODAY  171 

Belgian  Government  gives  them,  shook  hands  with  the 
Minister.  The  ranking  chief,  distinguished  by  the  ex- 
traordinary amount  of  red  mud  in  his  wool  and  the 
grotesque  devices  cut  with  a  knife  on  his  body,  made  a 
long  speech  in  which  he  became  rather  excited.  When 
the  agent  translated  this  in  French  to  Franck  I  gathered 
that  the  people  were  indignant  over  the  advance  in 
cost  of  trade  goods,  especially  salt  and  calico.  Salt  is 
more  valuable  than  gold  in  the  Congo.  Among  the 
natives  it  is  legal  tender  for  every  commodity  from  a 
handkerchief  to  a  wife. 

Franck  made  a  little  speech  in  French  in  reply  —  it 
was  translated  by  the  interpreter  —  in  which  he  said 
that  the  Great  War  had  increased  the  price  of  every- 
thing. We  shook  hands  all  round  and  there  was  much 
muttering  of  "y^i^^jo,"  the  word  for  "greeting,"  and 
headed  for  the  boat. 

Halfway  down  the  hill  we  heard  shouting  and  hissing. 
We  stopped  and  looked  back.  On  the  crest  were  a 
thousand  native  women,  jeering,  hooting,  and  pointing 
their  fingers  at  the  Minister,  who  immediately  asked  the 
cause  of  the  demonstration.  When  the  agent  called 
for  an  explanation  a  big  black  woman  said: 

"Ask  the  'Bula  Matadi'  why  the  franc  buys  so  little 
now?    We  only  get  a  few  goods  for  a  big  lot  of  money." 

I  had  gone  into  the  wilds  to  escape  from  economic 
unrest  and  all  the  confusion  that  has  followed  in  its 
wake,  yet  here  in  the  heart  of  Central  Africa,  I  found 
our  old  friend  the  High  Cost  of  Living  working  over- 
time and  provoking  a  spirited  protest  from  primitive 
savages!  It  proves  that  there  is  neither  caste,  creed  nor 
colour-line  in  the  pocket-book.  Like  indigestion,  to  re- 
peat Mr.  Pinero,  it  is  the  universal  leveller  of  all  ranks. 


IV 

ON  THIS  trip  Franck  outlined  to  me  his  whole 
colonial  creed.  It  was  a  gorgeous  June  morn- 
ing and  we  had  just  left  a  particularly  pic- 
turesque Arabized  village  behind  us.  Hundreds  of  na- 
tives had  come  out  to  welcome  the  Minister  in  canoes. 
They  sang  songs  and  played  their  crude  musical  instru- 
ments as  they  swept  alongside  our  boat.  We  now  sat 
on  the  upper  deck  and  watched  the  unending  panorama 
of  palm  trees  with  here  and  there  a  clump  of  grass  huts. 

"All  colonial  development  is  a  chain  which  is  no 
stronger  than  its  weakest  link  and  that  is  the  native,"  said 
the  Minister.  "As  you  build  the  native,  so  do  you  build 
the  whole  colonial  structure.  Hence  the  importance  of 
a  high  moral  standard.  You  must  conform  to  the  na- 
tive's traditions,  mentality  and  temperament.  Give  him 
a  technical  education  something  like  that  afforded  by 
Booker  Washington's  Tuskegee  Institute.  Show  him 
how  to  use  his  hands.  He  will  then  become  efficient  and 
therefore  contented.  It  is  a  mistake  to  teach  him  a 
European  language.  I  prefer  him  to  be  a  first-class 
African  rather  than  third-class  European. 

"The  hope  of  the  Congo  lies  in  industrialization  on 
the  one  hand,  and  the  creation  of  new  wealth  on  the 
other.  By  new  wealth  I  mean  such  new  crops  as  cotton 
and  a  larger  exploitation  of  such  old  products  as  rice 
and  palm  fruit.  Rubber  has  become  a  second  industry 
although  the  cultivated  plantations  are  in  part  taking 
the  place  of  the  old  wild  forests.  The  substitute  for 
rubber  as  the  first  product  of  the  land  is  the  fruit  of  the 

172 


THE    CONGO    TODAY  173 

oil  palm  tree.  This  will  be  the  industrial  staple  of  the 
Congo.  I  believe,  however,  that  in  time  cotton  can  be 
produced  in  large  commercial  quantities  over  a  wide 
area." 

Franck  now  turned  to  a  subject  which  reflects  his 
courage  and  progressiveness.  He  said,  "There  is  a 
strong  tendency  in  other  Colonies  to  give  too  large  a 
place  to  State  enterprise.  The  result  of  this  system 
is  that  officers  are  burdened  with  an  impossible  task. 
They  must  look  after  the  railways,  steamers,  mills,  and 
a  variety  of  tasks  for  which  they  often  lack  the  tech- 
nical knowledge. 

"I  have  made  it  a  point  to  give  first  place  to  private 
enterprise  and  to  transfer  those  activities  formerly  under 
State  rule  to  autonomous  enterprises  in  which  the  State 
has  an  interest.  They  are  run  by  business  men  along 
business  lines  as  business  institutions.  The  State's  prin- 
cipal function  in  them  is  to  protect  the  native  employes. 
The  gold  mines  at  Kilo  are  an  example.  They  are  still 
owned  by  the  State  but  are  worked  by  a  private  com- 
pany whose  directors  have  full  powers.  The  reason 
why  the  State  does  not  part  with  its  ownership  of  these 
mines  is  that  it  does  not  want  a  rush  of  gold-seekers. 
History  has  proved  that  in  a  country  with  a  primitive 
population  a  gold  rush  is  a  dangerous  and  destructive 
thing. 

"We  are  always  free  traders  in  Belgium  and  we  are 
glad  to  welcome  any  foreign  capital  to  the  Congo.  We 
have  already  had  the  constructive  influence  of  American 
capital  in  the  diamond  fields  and  we  will  be  glad  to  have 
more." 

The  average  man  thinks  that  the  Congo  and  conces- 
sions are  practically  synonymous  terms.  In  the  Leo- 
pold day  this  was  true  but  there  is  a  new  deal  now. 
Let  Monsieur  Franck  explain  it: 


174         AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

"There  was  a  time  when  huge  concessions  were  freely 
given  in  the  Congo.  They  were  then  necessary  because 
the  Colony  was  new,  the  country  unknown,  and  the 
financial  risk  large.  Now  that  the  economic  possibil- 
ities of  the  region  are  realized  it  is  not  desirable  to  grant 
any  more  large  concessions.  It  is  proved  that  these  con- 
cessions are  really  a  handicap  rather  than  a  help  to  a 
young  land.  The  wise  procedure  is  to  have  a  definite 
agricultural  or  industrial  aim  in  mind,  and  then  pick 
the  locality  for  exploitation,  whether  it  is  gold,  cotton, 
copper  or  palm  fruit." 

"What  is  the  future  of  the  Congo?"  I  asked. 

"The  Congo  is  now  entering  upon  a  big  era  of  de- 
velopment," was  the  answer.  "If  the  Great  War  had 
not  intervened  it  would  have  been  well  under  way.  De- 
spite the  invasion  of  Belgium,  the  practical  paralysis  of 
our  home  industry,  and  the  fact  that  many  of  our  Congo 
officials  and  their  most  highly  trained  natives  were  off 
fighting  the  Germans  in  East  Africa,  the  Colony  more 
than  held  its  own  during  those  terrible  years.  In  build- 
ing the  new  Congo  we  are  going  to  profit  by  the  example 
of  other  countries  and  capitalize  their  knowledge  and 
experience  of  tropical  hygiene.  We  propose  to  combat 
sleeping  sickness,  for  example,  with  an  agency  similar 
to  your  Rockerfeller  Institute  of  Research  in  New 
York. 

"The  Congo  is  bound  to  become  one  of  the  great 
centers  of  the  world  supply.  The  Katanga  is  not  only 
a  huge  copper  area  but  it  has  immense  stores  of  coal, 
tin,  zinc  and  other  valuable  commodities.  Our  diamond 
fields  have  scarcely  been  scraped,  while  the  agricultural 
possibilities  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  square  miles  are 
unlimited. 

"The  great  need  of  the  Congo  is  transport.    We  arc 


THE    CONGO    TODAY  176 

increasing  our  river  fleets  and  we  propose  to  introduce 
on  them  a  type  of  barge  similar  to  that  used  on  the 
Ohio  and  the  Mississippi  Rivers. 

"An  imposing  program  of  railway  expansion  is 
blocked  out.  For  one  thing  we  expect  to  run  a  railway 
from  the  Katanga  copper  belt  straight  across  country 
to  Kinshassa  on  the  Lower  Congo.  It  is  already  sur- 
veyed. This  will  tap  a  thickly  populated  region  and 
enable  the  diamond  mines  of  the  Kasai  to  get  the  labour 
they  need  so  sorely.  The  Robert  WilHams  railway 
through  Angola  will  be  another  addition  to  our  trans- 
portation facilities.  One  of  the  richest  regions  of  the 
Congo  is  the  north-eastern  section.  The  gold  mines 
at  Kilo  are  now  only  accessible  by  river.  We  plan  to 
join  them  up  with  the  railway  to  be  built  from  Stanley- 
ville to  the  Soudan  border.  This  will  link  the  Congo 
River  and  the  Nile.  With  our  railroads  as  with  our  in- 
dustrial enterprises,  we  stick  to  private  ownership  and 
operation  with  the  State  as  a  partner. 

"The  new  provinces  of  Ruanda  and  Urundi  will  con- 
tribute much  to  our  future  prosperity.  They  add  mil- 
lions of  acres  to  our  territory  and  3,000,000  healthy 
and  prosperous  natives  to  our  population.  These  new 
possessions  have  two  distinct  advantages.  One  is  that 
they  provide  an  invigorating  health  resort  which  will 
be  to  the  Central  Congo  what  the  Katanga  is  to  the 
Southern.  The  other  is  that,  being  an  immense  cattle 
country  —  there  is  a  head  of  live  stock  for  every  native 
—  we  will  be  able  to  secure  fresh  meat  and  dairy  prod- 
ucts, which  are  sorely  needed. 

"The  Congo  is  not  only  the  economic  hope  of  Belgium 
but  it  is  teaching  the  Belgian  capitalist  to  think  in 
broad  terms.  Henceforth  the  business  man  of  all  coun- 
tries must  regard  the  universe  as  his  field.    As  a  prac- 


176         AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

tical  commercial  proposition  it  pays,  both  with  nations 
as  with  individuals.  We  have  found  that  the  possession 
of  the  Congo,  huge  as  it  is,  and  difficult  for  a  country 
like  ours  to  develop,  is  a  stimulating  thing.  It  is  quick- 
ening our  enterprise  and  widening  our  world  view." 

It  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  more  practical  or  com- 
prehensive colonial  program.  It  eliminates  that  bane 
of  over-seas  administration,  red  tape,  and  it  puts  the 
task  of  empire-building  squarely  up  to  the  business  man 
who  is  the  best  qualified  for  the  work.  I  am  quite 
certain  that  the  advent  of  Monsieur  Franck  into  office, 
and  particularly  his  trip  to  the  Congo,  mean  the  be- 
ginning of  an  epoch  of  real  and  permanent  exploitation 
in  the  Congo. 


THE   MASSIVE  BANGALAS 


CONGO  WOMEN  IN  STATE  DRESS 


V  — ON   THE    CONGO   RIVER 


TWO  days  more  of  travelling  on  the  Lower 
Lualaba  brought  us  to  Ponthierville,  a  jewel 
of  a  post  with  a  setting  of  almost  bewildering 
tropical  beauty.  Here  we  spent  the  night  on  the  boat 
and  early  the  following  morning  boarded  a  special  train 
for  Stanleyville,  which  is  only  six  hours  distant  by  rail. 
Midway  we  crossed  the  Equator. 

Thirty  miles  south  of  Stanleyville  is  the  State  Ex- 
perimental Coffee  Farm  of  three  hundred  acres,  which 
produces  fifteen  different  species  of  the  bean.  This  in- 
stitution is  one  evidence  of  a  comprehensive  agricultural 
development  inaugurated  by  the  Belgian  Government. 
The  State  has  about  10,000  acres  of  test  plantations, 
mostly  Para  rubber,  cotton,  and  cacao,  in  various  parts 
of  the  Colony. 

One  commendable  object  of  this  work  is  to  instill  the 
idea  of  crop-growing  among  the  natives.  Under  ordi- 
nary circumstances  the  man  of  colour  in  the  tropics  will 
only  raise  enough  maize,  manioc,  or  tobacco  for  his  own 
needs.  The  Belgian  idea  is  to  encourage  co-operative 
farming  in  the  villages.  In  the  region  immediately  ad- 
jacent to  Stanleyville  the  natives  have  begun  to  plant 
cotton  over  a  considerable  area.  At  Kongolo  I  saw  hun- 
dreds of  acres  of  this  fleecy  plant  under  the  sole  super- 
vision of  the  indigenes. 

Stanleyville  marked  one  of  the  real  mileposts  of  my 
journey.    Here  came  Stanley  on  his  first  historic  expe- 

177 


178         AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

dition  across  Central  Africa  and  discovered  the  falls 
nearby  that  bear  hig  name;  here  he  set  up  the  Station 
that  marked  the  Farthest  East  of  the  expedition  which 
founded  the  Congo  Free  State.  Directly  south-east  of 
the  town  are  seven  distinct  cataracts  which  extend  over 
fifty  miles  of  seething  whirlpools. 

Stanleyrille  is  the  head  of  navigation  on  the  Congo 
and  like  Paris,  is  built  on  two  sides  of  the  river.  On  the 
right  bank  is  the  place  of  the  Vice-Govemor  General, 
scores  of  well  stocked  stores,  and  many  desirable  resi- 
dences. The  streets  are  long  avenues  of  palm  trees. 
The  left  bank  is  almost  entirely  given  over  to  the  rail- 
way terminals,  yards,  and  repair  shops.  My  original 
plan  was  to  live  with  the  Vice-Governor  General,  Mon- 
sieur de  Meulemeester,  but  his  establishment  was  so 
taxed  by  the  demands  of  the  Ministerial  party  that  I 
lodged  with  Monsieur  Theews,  Chief  Engineer  of  the 
Chemin  de  Fer  des  Grands  Lacs,  where  I  was  most 
comfortable  in  a  large  frame  bungalow  that  commanded 
a  superb  view  of  the  river  and  the  town. 

At  Stanleyville  the  Minister  of  the  Colonies  had  a 
great  reception.  Five  hundred  native  troops  looking 
very  smart  were  drawn  up  in  the  plaza.  On  the  platform 
of  the  station  stood  the  Vice-Govemor  General  and  staff 
in  spotless  white  uniforms,  their  breasts  ablaze  with  dec- 
orations. On  all  sides  were  thousands  of  natives  in  gay 
attire  who  cheered  and  chanted  while  the  band  played 
the  Belgian  national  anthem.  Over  it  all  waved  the 
flag  of  Belgium.  It  was  a  stirring  spectacle  not  without 
its  touch  of  the  barbaric,  and  a  small-scale  replica  of 
what  you  might  have  seen  at  Delhi  or  Cairo  on  a  fete 
day. 

I  was  only  mildly  interested  in  all  this  tumult  and 
shouting.     What  concerned  me  most  was  the  swift, 


ON    THE    CONGO    RIVER  179 

brown  river  that  flowed  almost  at  our  feet.  At  last  I 
had  reached  the  masterful  Congo,  which,  with  the  sole 
exception  of  the  Amazon,  is  the  mightiest  stream  in  the 
world.  As  I  looked  at  it  I  thought  of  Stanley  and  his 
battles  on  its  shores,  and  the  hardship  and  tragedy  that 
these  waters  had  witnessed. 

Stanleyville  is  not  only  the  heart  of  Equatorial  Africa 
but  it  is  also  an  important  administrative  point.  Hun- 
dreds of  State  officials  report  to  the  Vice-Govemor 
General  there,  and  on  national  holidays  and  occasions 
like  the  visit  of  the  Colonial  Minister,  it  can  muster  a 
gay  assemblage.  Monsieur  Franck's  presence  inspired 
a  succession  of  festivities  including  a  garden  party  which 
was  attended  by  the  entire  white  population  numbering 
about  seventy-five.  There  was  also  a  formal  dinner 
where  I  wore  evening  clothes  for  the  first  and  only 
time  between  Elizabeth ville  and  the  steamer  that  took 
me  to  Europe  three  months  later. 

At  the  garden  party  Monsieur  Franck  made  a  grace- 
ful speech  in  which  he  said  that  the  real  missionaries  of 
African  civilization  were  the  wives  who  accompanied 
their  husbands  to  their  lonely  posts  in  the  field.  What  he 
said  made  a  distinct  impression  upon  me  for  it  was  not 
only  the  truth  but  it  emphasized  a  detail  that  stands 
out  in  the  memory  of  everyone  who  visits  this  part  of  the 
world.  I  know  of  no  finer  heroines  than  these  women 
comrades  of  colonial  officials  who  brave  disease  and  dis- 
comfort to  share  the  lives  of  their  mates.  For  one  thing, 
they  give  the  native  a  new  respect  for  his  masters.  All 
white  women  in  the  Congo  are  called  "mamma"  by  the 
natives. 

The  use  of  "mamma"  by  the  African  natives  always 
strikes  the  newcomer  as  strange.  It  is  a  curious  fact 
that  practically  the  first  word  uttered  by  the  black  in- 


180         AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

fant  is  "mamma,"  and  in  thousands  of  cases  the  final 
utterance  of  both  adult  male  and  female  is  the  same 
word.  In  northern  Rhodesia  and  many  parts  of  the 
Congo  the  native  mother  frequently  refers  to  her  child 
as  a  "piccannin"  which  is  almost  the  same  word  em- 
ployed by  coloured  people  in  the  American  South. 

Stanleyville's  social  prestige  is  only  equalled  by  her 
economic  importance.  It  is  one  of  the  great  ivory  mar- 
kets of  the  world.  During  the  last  two  years  this 
activity  has  undergone  fluctuations  that  almost  put 
Wall  Street  to  the  blush. 

During  the  war  there  was  very  little  trafficking  in  ivory 
because  it  was  a  luxury.  With  peace  came  a  big  demand 
and  the  price  soared  to  more  than  200  francs  a  kilo. 
The  ordinary  price  is  about  forty.  One  trader  at 
Stanleyville  cleaned  up  a  profit  of  3,000,000  francs  in 
three  months.  Then  came  the  inevitable  reaction  and 
with  it  a  unique  situation.  In  their  mad  desire  to  corral 
ivory  the  traders  ran  up  the  normal  price  that  the  native 
hunters  received.  The  moment  the  boom  burst  the  white 
buyers  sought  to  regulate  their  purchases  accordingly. 
The  native,  however,  knows  nothing  about  the  law  of 
demand  and  supply  and  he  holds  out  for  the  boom  price. 
The  outcome  is  that  hundreds  of  tons  of  ivory  are  piled 
up  in  the  villages  and  no  power  on  earth  can  convince 
the  savage  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  the  ebb  and  flow 
of  price.    Such  is  commercial  life  in  the  jungle. 

Northeast  of  Stanleyville  lie  the  most  important 
gold  mines  in  the  Colony.  The  precious  metal  was  dis- 
covered accidentally  some  years  ago  in  the  gravel  of 
small  rivers  west  of  Lake  Albert,  and  near  the  small 
towns  of  Kilo  and  Moto.  Four  mines  are  now  worked 
in  this  vicinity,  two  by  the  Government  and  two  by  a 
private  company.    At  the  outbreak  of  the  war  this  area 


ON    THE    CONGO    RIVER  181 

was  on  the  verge  of  considerable  development  which  has 
just  been  resumed.  At  the  time  of  my  visit  all  these 
mines  were  placers  and  the  operation  was  rather  prim- 
itive. With  modem  machinery  and  enlarged  white  staffs 
will  come  a  pretentious  exploitation.  The  Government 
mines  alone  yield  more  than  $2,000,000  worth  of  gold 
every  year.  Shortly  before  my  arrival  in  the  Congo 
what  was  heralded  as  the  largest  gold  nugget  ever  dis- 
covered was  foimd  in  the  Kilo  State  Mine.  It  weighed 
twelve  pounds. 

Stanleyville  has  a  significance  for  me  less  romantic 
but  infinitely  more  practical  than  the  first  contact  with 
the  Congo  River.  After  long  weeks  of  suffering  from 
inefficient  service  I  sacked  Gerome  and  annexed  a  boy 
named  Nelson.  The  way  of  it  was  this :  In  the  Katanga 
I  engaged  a  young  Belgian  who  was  on  his  way  home, 
to  act  as  secretary.  He  knew  the  native  languages  and 
could  always  convince  the  most  stubborn  black  to  part 
with  an  egg.  Nelson  was  his  servant.  He  was  born 
on  the  Rhodesian  border  and  spoke  English.  I  could 
therefore  upbraid  him  to  my  heart's  content,  which  was 
not  the  case  with  Gerome.  Besides,  he  was  not  handi- 
capped with  a  wife.  In  Africa  the  servants  adopt  the 
names  of  their  masters.  Nelson  had  worked  for  an 
Englishman  at  Elizabethville  and  acquired  his  cogno- 
men. I  have  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  he  now  mas- 
querades under  mine.  Be  that  as  it  may.  Nelson  was 
a  model  servant  and  he  remained  with  me  until  that 
September  day  when  I  boarded  the  Belgium-bound 
boat  at  Matadi. 

Nelson  reminded  me  more  of  the  Georgia  Negro  than 
any  other  one  that  I  saw  in  the  Congo.  He  was  almost 
coal  black,  he  smiled  continuously,  and  his  teeth  were 
wonderful  to  look  at.    He  had  an  unusual  capacity  for 


182         AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

work  and  also  for  food.  I  think  he  was  the  champion 
consumer  of  chikwanga  in  the  Congo.  The  chikwanga  is 
a  glutinous  dough  made  from  the  pounded  root  of  the 
jjpanioc  plant  and  is  the  principal  food  of  the  native. 
It  is  rolled  and  cut  up  in  pieces  and  then  wrapped  in 
green  leaves.  The  favorite  way  of  preparing  it  for 
consumption  is  to  heat  it  in  palm  oil,  although  it  is 
often  eaten  raw.  Nelson  bought  these  chikwangas 
by  the  dozen.  He  was  never  without  one.  He  even 
ate  as  he  washed  my  clothes. 

The  Congo  native  is  in  a  continuous  state  of  recep- 
tivity when  it  comes  to  food.  Nowhere  in  the  world 
have  I  seen  people  who  ate  so  much.  I  have  offered 
the  leavings  of  a  meal  to  a  savage  just  after  he  had 
apparently  gorged  himself  and  he  "wolfed"  it  as  if  he 
were  famished.  The  invariable  custom  in  the  Congo 
is  to  have  one  huge  meal  a  day.  On  this  occasion  every 
member  of  the  family  consimies  all  the  edibles  in  sight. 
Then  the  crowd  lays  off  until  the  following  day.  All 
food  offered  in  the  meantime  by  way  of  gratuity  or 
otherwise  is  devoured  on  the  spot. 

In  connection  with  the  chikwanga  is  an  interesting 
fact.  The  Congo  natives  all  die  young  —  I  only  saw 
a  dozen  old  men  —  because  they  are  insufficiently 
nourished.  The  chikwanga  is  filling  but  not  fattening. 
This  is  why  sleeping  sickness  takes  such  dreadful  toll. 
From  an  estimated  population  of  30,000,000  in  Stanley's 
day  the  indigenes  have  dwindled  to  less  than  one-third 
this  number.  Meat  is  a  luxury.  Adthough  the  natives 
have  chickens  in  abundance  they  seldom  eat  one  for  the 
reason  that  it  is  more  profitable  to  sell  them  to  the  white 
man. 

It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  the  Congo  native 
suffers  from  ailments.    Unlike  the  average  small  boy 


S 
o 

■< 


h4 
< 


ON    THE    CONGO    RIVER  183 

of  civilization,  he  delights  in  taking  medicine  I  suppose 
that  he  regards  it  as  just  another  form  of  food.  You 
hear  many  amusing  stories  in  connection  with  medicinal 
articles.  When  you  give  a  savage  a  dozen  effective  pills, 
for  example,  and  tell  him  to  take  one  every  night,  he 
usually  swallows  them  all  at  one  time  and  then  he  won- 
ders why  the  results  are  disastrous.  A  sorcerer  in  the 
Upper  Congo  region  once  obtained  what  was  widely 
acclaimed  as  miraculous  results  from  a  red  substance 
that  he  got  out  of  a  tin.  It  developed  that  he  had  stolen 
a  can  of  potted  beef  and  was  using  it  as  "medicine." 

Stanleyville  was  called  the  center  of  the  old  Arab 
slave  trade.  While  the  odious  traffic  has  long  ceased 
to  exist,  you  occasionally  meet  an  old  native  who  bears 
the  scars  of  battle  with  the  marauders  and  who  can  tell 
harrowing  tales  of  the  cruelties  they  inflicted. 

The  slave  raiders  began  their  operations  in  the  Congo 
in  1877,  the  same  year  in  which  Stanley  made  his  his- 
toric march  across  Africa  from  Zanzibar  to  the  north  of 
the  Congo.  It  was  the  great  explorer  who  uncon- 
sciously blazed  the  way  for  the  man-hunters.  They 
followed  him  down  the  Lualaba  River  as  far  as  Stanley 
Falls  and  discovered  what  was  to  them  a  real  human 
treasure-trove.  For  twenty  years  they  blighted  the 
country,  carrying  off  tens  of  thousands  of  men,  women 
and  children  and  slaughtering  thousands  in  addition. 
This  region  was  a  cannibal  stronghold  and  one  bait  that 
lured  local  allies  was  the  promise  of  the  bodies  of  all 
natives  slain,  for  consumption.  Belgian  pioneers  in  the 
Congo  who  co-operated  with  the  late  Baron  Dhanis  who 
finally  put  down  the  slave  trade,  have  told  me  that  it 
was  no  infrequent  sight  to  behold  native  women  going 
off  to  their  ^^llages  with  baskets  of  human  flesh.  They 
were  part  of  the  spoils  of  this  hideous  warfare. 


184         AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

Tippo  Tib  was  lord  of  this  slave-trading  domain  This 
astounding  rascal  had  a  distinct  personality.  He  was 
a  master  trader  and  drove  the  hardest  bargain  in  all 
Africa.  Livingstone,  Cameron,  Stanley,  and  Wiss- 
mann  all  did  business  with  him,  for  he  had  a  monopoly 
on  porters  and  no  one  could  proceed  without  his  help. 
He  invaribly  waited  until  the  white  man  reached  the 
limit  of  his  resources  and  then  exacted  the  highest  price, 
in  true  Shylockian  fashion. 

According  to  Herbert  Ward,  the  well-known  African 
artist  and  explorer,  who  accompanied  Stanley  on  the 
Emin  Pasha  Relief  Expedition,  Tippo  Tib  was  some- 
thing of  a  philosopher.  On  one  occasion  Ward  spent 
the  evening  with  the  old  Arab.  He  occupied  a  wretched 
house.  Rain  dripped  in  through  the  roof,  rats  scuttled 
across  the  floor,  and  wind  shook  the  walls.  When  the 
Englishman  expressed  his  astonishment  that  so  rich  and 
powerful  a  chief  should  dwell  in  such  a  mean  abode 
Tippo  Tib  said: 

"It  is  better  that  I  should  live  in  a  house  like  this 
because  it  makes  me  remember  that  I  am  only  an  or- 
dinary man  like  others.  If  I  lived  in  a  fine  house  with 
comforts  I  should  perhaps  end  by  thinking  too  much  of 
myself." 

Ward  also  relates  another  typical  story  about  this 
blood-thirsty  bandit.  A  missionary  once  called  him  to 
account  for  the  frightful  barbarities  he  had  perpetrated, 
whereupon  he  received  the  following  reply: 

"Ah,  yesl  You  see  I  was  then  a  young  man.  Now 
my  hair  is  turning  gray.  I  am  an  old  man  and  shall 
have  more  consideration." 

Until  his  death  in  1907  at  Zanzibar,  Tippo  Tib  and 
reformation  were  absolute  strangers.  He  embodied  that 
combination  of  cruelity  and  religious  fanaticism  so  often 


ON    THE    CONGO   RIVER  185 

found  in  the  Arab.  He  served  his  God  and  the  devil 
with  the  same  relentless  devotion.  He  incarnated  a 
type  that  happily  has  vanished  from  the  map  of  Africa. 

The  region  around  Stanleyville  is  rich  with  historic 
interest  and  association.  The  great  name  inseparably 
and  immortally  linked  with  it  is  that  of  Stanley.  Al- 
though he  found  Livingstone,  relieved  Emin  Pasha,  first 
traversed  the  Congo  River,  and  sowed  the  seeds  of  civil- 
ization throughout  the  heart  of  the  continent,  his  great- 
est single  achievement,  perhaps,  was  the  founding  of 
the  Congo  Free  State.  No  other  enterprise  took  such 
toll  of  his  essential  qualities  and  especially  his  genius 
for  organization. 

Stanley  is  most  widely  known  as  an  explorer,  yet 
he  was,  at  the  same  time,  one  of  the  master  civilizers. 
He  felt  that  his  Congo  adventure  would  be  incomplete 
if  he  did  not  make  the  State  a  vast  productive  region 
and  the  home  of  the  white  man.  He  longed  to  see  it 
a  British  possession  and  it  was  only  after  he  offered  it 
twice  to  England  and  was  twice  rebuffed,  that  he  ac- 
cepted the  invitation  of  King  Leopold  II  to  organize  the 
stations  under  the  auspices  of  the  International  Afri- 
can Association,  which  was  the  first  step  toward  Belgian 
sovereignty. 

I  have  talked  with  many  British  and  Belgian  asso- 
ciates of  Stanley.  Without  exception  they  all  acclaim 
his  sterling  virtues  both  in  the  physical  and  spiritual 
sense.  All  agree  that  he  was  a  hard  man.  The  best 
explanation  of  this  so-called  hardness  is  given  by  Her- 
bert Ward,  who  once  spoke  to  him  about  it.  Stanley's 
reply  was,  "YouVe  got  to  be  hard.  If  you're  not  hard 
you're  weak.    There  are  only  two  sides  to  it." 

Stanley  always  declared  that  his  whole  idea  of  life 
and  work  were  embodied  in  the  following  maxim :  "The 


186         AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

three  M's  are  all  we  need.  They  are  Morals,  Mind  and 
Muscles.  These  must  be  cultivated  if  we  wish  to  be 
immortal."  To  an  astonishing  degree  he  worked  and 
lived  up  to  these  principles. 

No  explorer,  not  even  Peary  in  the  Arctic  wilds,  was 
ever  prey  to  a  larger  isolation  than  this  man.  In  the 
midst  of  the  multitude  he  was  alone.  He  shunned  in- 
timacy and  one  of  his  mournful  reflections  was,  "I  have 
had  no  friend  on  any  expedition,  no  one  who  could  pos- 
sibly be  my  companion  on  an  equal  footing,  except  while 
with  Livingstone." 

I  cannot  resist  the  impulse  to  make  comparison  be- 
tween those  two  outstanding  Englishmen,  Rhodes  and 
Stanley,  whose  lives  are  intimately  woven  into  the  fabric 
of  African  romance.  They  had  much  in  common  and 
yet  they  were  widely  different  in  purpose  and  temper- 
ament. Each  was  an  autocrat  and  brooked  no  inter- 
ference. Each  had  the  same  kindling  ideal  of  British 
imperialism.  Each  suffered  abuse  at  the  hands  of  his 
countrymen  and  lived  to  witness  a  triumphant  vindi- 
'cation. 

Stanley  had  a  rare  talent  for  details  —  he  went  on  the 
theory  that  if  you  wanted  a  thing  done  properly  you 
must  do  it  yourself  —  but  Rhodes  only  saw  things  in  a 
big  way  and  left  the  interpretation  to  subordinates. 
Stanley  was  devoutly  religious  while  Rhodes  paid  scant 
attention  to  the  spiritual  side.  Each  was  a  dreamer  in 
his  own  way  and  merely  regarded  money  as  a  means  to 
an  end.  Rhodes,  however,  was  far  more  disdainful  of 
wealth  as  such,  than  Stanley,  who  received  large  sums 
for  his  books  and  lectures.  It  is  only  fair  to  him  to  say 
that  he  never  took  pecuniary  advantage  of  the  immense 
opportunities  that  his  exporations  in  the  Congo  afforded. 

Still  another  intrepid  Englishman  narrowly  missed 


ON    THE    CONGO    RIVER  187 

having  a  big  role  in  the  drama  of  the  Congo.  General 
Gordon  agreed  to  assume  the  Governorship  of  the 
Lower  Congo  under  Stanley,  who  was  to  be  the  Chief 
Administrator  of  the  Upper  Congo.  They  were  to  unite 
in  one  grand  effort  to  crush  the  slave  trade.  Fate  inter- 
vened. Gordon  meanwhile  was  asked  by  the  British 
Government  to  go  to  Egypt,  then  in  the  throes  of  the 
Mahdist  uprising.  He  went  to  his  martyrdom  at 
Khartoum,  and  Stanley  continued  his  work  alone  in 
Central  Africa. 

While  Stanley  established  its  most  enduring  tradi- 
tions, other  heroic  soldiers  and  explorers,  contributed  to 
the  roll  of  fame  of  the  Upper  Congo  region.  Conspic- 
uous among  them  was  Captain  Deane,  an  Englishman 
who  fought  the  Arab  slave  traders  at  Stanley  Falls 
and  who  figured  in  a  succession  of  episodes  that  read 
like  the  most  romantic  fiction. 

With  less  than  a  hundred  native  troops  recruited  from 
the  West  Coast  of  Africa,  he  defended  the  State 
Station  founded  by  Stanley  at  the  Falls  against  thou- 
sands of  Arab  raiders.  Most  of  the  caps  in  his  rifle 
cartridges  were  rendered  useless  by  dampness  and  the 
Captain  and  his  second  in  command.  Lieutenant  Dubois, 
a  Belgian  ofiicer,  fought  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  his 
men  in  the  hand-to-hand  struggle  that  ensued.  Sub- 
sequently practically  all  the  natives  deserted  and  Deane 
was  left  with  Dubois  and  four  loyal  blacks.  Under 
cover  of  darkness  they  escaped  from  the  island  on  which 
the  Station  was  located.  On  this  journey  Dubois  was 
drowned. 

For  thirty  days  Deane  and  his  four  faithful  troopers 
wandered  through  the  forests,  hiding  during  the  day 
from  their  ferocious  pursuers  and  sleeping  in  trees  at 
night.     On  the  thirtieth  day  he  was  capured  by  the 


188         AN    AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

savages.  Unarmed,  he  sank  to  the  ground  overcome 
with  weariness.  A  big  native  stood  over  him  with  his 
spear  poised  for  the  fatal  thrust.  A  moment  later  the 
Englishman  was  surprised  to  see  his  enemy  lower  the 
weapon  and  grasp  him  by  the  hand.  He  had  succored 
this  savage  two  years  before  and  had  not  been  forgotten. 
Deane  and  his  companions  were  convoyed  under  an 
escort  to  Herbert  Ward's  camp  and  he  was  nursed  back 
to  health. 

Deane*s  death  illustrates  the  irony  that  entered  into 
the  passing  of  so  many  African  adventurers.  Twelve 
months  after  he  was  snatched  from  the  jaws  of  death  on 
the  banks  of  the  Congo  in  the  manner  just  described, 
he  was  killed  while  hunting  elephants.  A  wounded 
beast  impaled  him  on  a  tusk  and  then  mauled  him  almost 
beyond  recognition. 


II 

SINCE  Stanleyville  is  the  head  of  navigation  on 
the  Congo  there  is  ordinarily  no  lack  of  boats. 
I  was  fortunate  to  be  able  to  embark  on  the 
"Comte  de  Flandre,"  the  Mauretania  of  those  inland 
seas  and  the  most  imposing  vessel  on  the  river  for  she 
displaced  five  hundred  tons.  She  flew  the  flag  of  the 
Huileries  du  Congo  Beige,  the  palm  oil  concern  founded 
by  Lord  Leverhulme  and  the  most  important  all-British 
commercial  interest  in  the  Congo.  She  was  one  of  a 
fleet  of  ten  boats  that  operate  on  the  Congo,  the  Kasai, 
the  Kwilu  and  other  rivers.  I  not  only  had  a  comfort- 
able cabin  but  the  rarest  of  luxuries  in  Central  Africa, 
a  regulation  bathtub,  was  available.  The  "Comte  de 
Flandre"  had  cabin  accommodations  for  fourteen 
whites.  The  Captain  was  an  Englishman  and  the  Chief 
Engineer  a  Scotchman. 

On  this,  as  on  most  of  the  other  Congo  boats,  the  food 
is  provided  by  the  Captain,  to  whom  the  passengers  pay 
a  stipulated  sum  for  meals.  On  the  "Comte  de  Flandre," 
however,  the  food  privilege  was  owned  jointly  by  the 
Captain  and  the  Chief  Engineer.  The  latter  did  all  the 
buying  and  it  was  almost  excruciatingly  funny  to  watch 
him  driving  real  Scotch  bargains  with  the  natives  who 
came  aboard  at  the  various  stops  to  sell  chickens,  goats, 
and  fruit.  The  engineer  could  scarcely  speak  a  word  of 
any  of  the  native  languages,  but  he  invariably  got  over 
the  fact  that  the  price  demanded  was  too  high. 

The  passenger  list  of  the  "Comte  de  Flandre"  in- 
cluded Englishmen,  Belgians,  Italians,  and  Portuguese. 

189 


190          AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

I  was  the  only  American.  The  steerage,  firemen,  and 
wood- boys  were  all  blacks.  With  this  international  con- 
gress over  which  beamed  the  broad  smile  of  Nelson,  I 
started  on  the  thousand-mile  trip  down  the  Congo  River. 

It  is  difficult  to  convey  the  impression  that  the  Congo 
River  gives.  Serene  and  majestic,  it  is  often  well-nigh 
overwhelming  in  its  immensity.  Between  Stanleyville 
and  Kinshassa  there  are  four  thousand  islands,  some  of 
them  thirty  miles  in  length.  As  the  boat  picks  its  way 
through  them  you  feel  as  if  you  were  travelling  through 
an  endless  tropical  park  of  which  the  river  provides  the 
paths.  It  has  been  well  called  a  "Venice  of  Vegetation." 
The  shores  are  brilliant  with  a  variegated  growth  whose 
exotic  smell  is  wafted  out  over  the  waters.  You  see 
priceless  orchids  entwined  with  the  mangroves  in  end- 
less profusion.  Behind  this  verdure  stretches  the  dense 
equatorial  forest  in  which  Stanley  battled  years  ago  in 
an  almost  impenetrable  gloom.  Aigrettes  and  birds  of 
paradise  fly  on  all  sides  and  every  hour  reveals  a  hide- 
ous crocodile  sunning  himself  on  a  sandspit. 

Night  on  the  Congo  enhances  the  lonehness  that  you 
feel  on  all  the  Central  African  rivers.  Although  the 
settlements  are  more  numerous  and  larger  than  those 
on  the  Lualaba  and  the  Kasai,  there  is  the  same  feeling 
of  isolation  the  moment  darkness  falls.  The  jungle 
seems  to  be  an  all-embracing  monster  who  mocks  you 
with  his  silence.  Joseph  Conrad  interpreted  this  atmos- 
phere when  he  referred  to  it  as  having  "a  stillness  of 
life  that  did  not  resemble  peace,  —  the  silence  of  an 
implacable  force  brooding  over  an  inscrutable  intention." 
This  is  the  Congo  River. 

The  more  I  saw  of  the  Congo  River  —  it  is  nearly 
twice  as  large  as  the  Mississippi  —  the  more  I  realized 


WOMEN  MAKING  POTTERY 


THE   (ONGO  PICKANINNY 


ON    THE    CONGO   RIVER  191 

that  it  is  in  reality  a  parent  of  waters.  It  has  half  a 
dozen  tributaries  that  range  in  length  from  500  to  1,000 
miles  each.  The  most  important  are  the  Lualaba  and 
the  Kasai.  Others  include  the  Itimbiri,  the  Aruwimi 
and  the  Mubangi.  Scores  of  smaller  streams,  many  of 
them  navigable  for  launches,  empty  into  the  main  river. 
This  is  why  there  is  such  a  deep  and  swift  current  in 
the  lower  region  where  the  Congo  enters  the  sea. 

The  astonishing  thing  about  the  Congo  River  is  its 
inconsistency.  Although  six  miles  wide  in  many  parts 
it  is  frequently  not  more  than  six  feet  deep.  This  makes 
navigation  dangerous  and  difficult.  As  on  the  Lualaba 
and  every  other  river  in  the  Colony,  soundings  must  be 
taken  continually.  This  extraordinary  discrepancy  be- 
tween width  and  depth  reminds  me  of  the  designation 
of  the  Platte  River  in  Nebraska  by  a  Kansas  statesman 
which  was,  "A  river  three-quarters  of  a  mile  wide  and 
three-quarters  of  an  inch  deep.'*  Thus  the  Congo  jour- 
ney takes  on  a  constant  element  of  hazard  because  you 
do  not  know  what  moment  you  will  run  aground  on  a 
sand-bank,  be  impaled  on  a  snag,  or  strike  a  rock. 

Although  the  "Comte  de  Flandre**  was  rated  as  the 
fastest  craft  on  the  Congo  our  progress  was  unusually 
slow  because  of  the  scarcity  of  wood  for  fuel.  This 
seems  incredible  when  you  consider  that  the  whole  Congo 
Basin  is  one  vast  forest.  Millions  of  trees  stand  ready 
to  be  sacrified  to  the  needs  of  man,  yet  there  are  no 
hands  to  cut  them.  In  the  Congo,  as  throughout  this 
distracted  world,  the  will-to-work  is  a  lost  art,  no  less 
manifest  among  the  savages  than  among  their  civilized 
brothers.  The  ordinary  native  will  only  labour  long 
enough  to  provide  himself  with  sufficient  money  to  buy 
a  month's  supply  of  food.  Then  he  quits  and  joins  the 
leisure  class.    Hence  wood-hunting  on  the  Congo  vies 


192         AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

with  the  trip  itself  as  a  real  adventure.  The  competition 
between  river  captains  for  fuel  is  so  keen  that  a  skipper 
will  sometimes  start  his  boat  at  three  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing and  risk  an  accident  in  the  dark  in  order  to  beat  a 
rival  to  a  wood  supply. 

All  up  and  down  the  river  are  wood-posts.  Most  of 
them  are  owned  by  the  steamship  companies.  It  was 
our  misfortune  to  find  most  of  them  practically  stripped 
of  their  supplies.  A  journey  which  ordinarily  takes 
twelve  days  consumed  twenty.  But  there  were  many 
compensations  and  I  had  no  quarrel  with  the  circum- 
stance : 

I  had  the  good  fortune  to  witness  that  rarest  of  sights 
that  falls  to  the  lot  of  the  casual  traveller  —  a  serious 
fight  between  natives.  We  stopped  at  a  native  wood- 
post —  (some  of  them  are  operated  by  the  occasionally 
industrious  blacks) — for  fuel.  The  whole  village 
turned  out  to  help  load  the  logs.  In  the  midst  of  the 
process  a  crowd  of  natives  made  their  appearance,  armed 
with  spears  and  shields.  They  began  to  taunt  the  men 
and  women  who  were  loading  our  boat.  I  afterwards 
learned  that  they  owned  a  wood-post  nearby  and  were 
disgnmtled  because  we  had  not  patronized  them.  They 
blamed  their  neighbours  for  it.  Almost  before  we 
realized  it  a  pitched  battle  was  in  progress  in  which 
spears  were  thrown  and  men  and  women  were  laid  out 
in  a  generally  bloody  fracas.  One  man  got  an  assegai 
through  his  throat  and  it  probably  inflicted  a  fatal 
wound. 

In  the  midst  of  the  melee  one  of  my  fellow  passengers, 
a  Catholic  priest  named  Father  Brandsma,  coura- 
geously dashed  in  between  the  flying  spears  and  logs  of 
wood  and  separated  the  combatants.  This  incident  shows 
the  hostility  that  still  exists  between  the  various  tribes  in 


ON    THE    CONGO   RIVER  193 

the  Congo.  It  constitutes  one  excellent  reason  why 
there  can  never  be  any  concerted  uprising  against  the 
whites.  There  is  no  single,  strong,  cohesive  native 
dynasty. 

Father  Brandsma  was  one  of  the  finest  men  I  met  in 
the  Congo.  He  was  a  member  of  the  society  of  priests 
which  has  its  headquarters  at  Mill  Hill  in  England.  He 
came  aboard  the  boat  late  one  night  when  we  were  tied 
up  at  Bumba,  having  ridden  a  hundred  miles  on  his 
bicycle  along  the  native  trails.  We  met  the  following 
morning  in  the  dining  saloon.  I  sat  at  a  table  writing 
letters  and  he  took  a  seat  nearby  and  started  to  make 
some  notes  in  a  book.  When  we  finished  I  addressed 
him  in  French.  He  answered  in  flawless  English.  He 
then  told  me  that  he  had  spent  fifteen  years  in  Uguanda, 
where  he  was  at  the  head  of  the  Catholic  Missions. 

The  Father  was  in  his  fifth  year  of  service  in  the 
Congo  and  his  analysis  of  the  native  situation  was  accu- 
rate and  convincing.  Among  other  things  he  said,  "The 
great  task  of  the  Colonial  Government  is  to  provide 
labour  for  the  people.  In  many  localities  only  one 
native  out  of  a  hundred  works.  This  idleness  must  be 
stopped  and  the  only  way  to  stop  it  is  to  initiate  high- 
way and  other  improvements,  so  as  to  recruit  a  large 
part  of  the  native  population." 

Father  Brandsma  is  devoting  some  of  his  energy  to 
a  change  in  copal  gathering.  This  substance,  which  is 
found  at  the  roots  of  trees  in  swampy  and  therefore 
unhealthy  country,  is  employed  in  the  manufacture  of 
varnish.  To  harvest  it  the  natives  stand  all  day  in  water 
up  to  their  hips  and  they  catch  the  inevitable  colds  from 
which  pneimionia  develops.  Copal  gathering  is  a  con- 
siderable source  of  income  for  many  tribes  and  usually 
the  entire  community  treks  to  the  marshes.     In  this 


194         AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

way  the  lives  of  the  women  and  children  are  also 
menaced.  The  Father  believes  that  only  the  men 
should  go  forth  at  certain  periods  for  this  work  and  leave 
their  families  behind. 

Father  Brandsma  was  the  central  actor  in  a  pictur- 
esque scene.  One  Sunday  morning  I  heard  a  weird 
chanting  and  I  arose  to  discover  the  cause.  I  found  that 
the  priest  was  celebrating  mass  for  the  natives  on  the 
main  deck  of  the  boat.  Dawn  had  just  broken,  and  on 
the  improvised  altar  several  candles  gleamed  in  the 
half  light.  In  his  vestments  the  priest  was  a  striking 
figure.  All  about  him  knelt  the  score  of  naked  savages 
who  made  up  the  congregation.  They  crossed  them- 
selves constantly  and  made  the  usual  responses.  I  must 
confess  that  the  ceremony  was  strangely  moving  and 
impressive. 

As  soon  as  I  reached  the  Congo  River  I  saw  that  the 
natives  were  bigger  and  stronger  than  those  of  the 
Katanga  and  other  sections  that  I  had  visited.  The  most 
important  of  the  river  tribes  are  the  Bangalas,  who  are 
magnificent  specimens  of  manhood.  In  Stanley's  day 
they  were  masters  of  a  considerable  portion  of  the 
Upper  Congo  River  region  and  contested  his  way  skil- 
fully and  bitterly.  They  are  more  peacefully  inclined 
today  and  hundreds  of  them  are  employed  as  wood-boys 
and  firemen  on  the  river  boats. 

The  Bangalas  practice  cicatrization  to  an  elaborate 
extent.  This  process  consists  of  opening  a  portion  of 
the  flesh  with  a  knife,  injecting  an  irritating  juice  into 
the  wound,  and  allowing  the  place  to  swell.  The  effect 
is  to  raise  a  lump  or  weal.  Some  of  these  excrescences 
are  tiny  bimips  and  others  develop  into  large  welts 
that  disfigure  the  anatomy.  Extraordinary  designs  are 
literally  carved  on  the  faces  and  bodies  of  the  men  and 


ON    THE    CONGO    RIVER  195 

women.  Although  it  is  an  intensely  painful  operation, 
—  some  of  the  wounds  must  be  opened  many  times  — 
the  native  submits  to  it  with  pleasure  because  the  more 
ornate  the  design  the  more  resplendant  the  wearer  feels. 
The  women  are  usually  more  liberally  marked  than  the 
men. 

Cicatrization  is  popular  in  various  parts  of  Central 
Africa  but  nowhere  to  the  degree  that  it  prevails  on  the 
Congo  River  and  among  the  Bangalas,  where  it  is  a 
tribal  mark.  I  observed  women  whose  entire  bodies 
from  the  ankles  up  to  the  head  were  one  mass  of 
cicatrized  designs.  One  of  the  favorite  areas  is  the 
stomach.  This  is  just  another  argument  against  clothes. 
Cicatrization  bears  the  same  relation  to  the  African 
native  that  tattooing  does  to  the  whites  of  some  sections. 
Human  vanity  works  in  mysterious  ways  to  express 
itself. 

In  this  connection  it  is  perhaps  worth  while  to  point 
out  one  of  the  reasons  why  the  Congo  atrocity  exhorters 
found  such  ready  exhibits  for  their  arguments.  The 
Central  African  native  delights  in  disfigurement  not 
only  as  a  sign  of  "beauty,"  but  as  a  means  of  retaliation 
for  real  or  fancied  wrongs  among  his  own.  In  the  old 
days  dozens  of  slaves,  and  sometimes  wives,  were  sacri- 
ficed upon  the  death  of  an  important  chief.  Their 
spirits  were  supposed  to  provide  a  bodyguard  to  escort 
the  departed  potentate  safely  into  the  land  of  the  here- 
after. One  of  the  former  prerogatives  of  a  husband 
was  the  sanction  to  chop  off  the  hand  or  foot  of  a  wife 
if  she  offended  or  disobeyed  him.  Hence  Central  Africa 
abounded  in  mutilated  men,  women  and  children.  While 
some  of  these  barbarities  may  have  been  due  to  excessive 
zeal  or  temper  in  State  or  corporation  officials  there  is 
no  doubt  that  many  instances  were  the  result  of  native 
practices. 


196         AN   AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

The  reference  to  cicatrization  brings  to  mind  another 
distinctive  Central  African  observance.  I  refer  to  the 
ceremony  of  blood  brotherhood.  When  two  men,  who 
have  been  enemies,  desire  to  make  the  peace  and  swear 
eternal  amity,  they  make  a  small  incision  in  one  of  their 
forearms  sufficiently  deep  to  cause  the  flow  of  blood. 
Each  then  licks  the  blood  from  the  other's  arm  and 
henceforth  they  are  related  as  brothers.  This  perform- 
ance was  not  only  common  among  the  blacks  but  was 
also  practiced  by  the  whites  and  the  blacks  the  moment 
civilization  entered  the  wild  domains.  Stanley's  arms 
were  one  mass  of  scars  as  the  result  of  swearing  con- 
stant blood  brotherhood.  It  became  such  a  nuisance  and 
at  the  same  time  developed  into  such  a  serious  menace 
to  his  health,  that  the  rite  had  to  be  amended.  Instead 
of  licking  the  blood  the  comrades  now  merely  rub  the  in- 
cisions together  on  the  few  occasions  nowadays  when 
fealty  is  sworn.  I  am  glad  to  say  that  I  escaped  the 
ordeal. 

Much  to  my  regret  I  saw  only  a  few  of  the  much-de- 
scribed pygmies  who  dwelt  mainly  in  the  regions  north- 
east of  Stanleyville,  where  Stanley  first  met  them.  They 
are  all  under  three  feet  in  height,  are  light  brown  in 
colour,  and  wear  no  garments  when  on  their  native 
heath.  They  are  the  shyest  of  all  the  tribes  I  en- 
countered. These  diminutive  creatures  seldom  enter 
the  service  of  the  white  man  and  prefer  the  wild  life  of 
the  jungle.  I  was  informed  in  the  Congo  that  the  real 
pygmy  is  fast  disappearing  from  the  map.  Intermar- 
riage with  other  tribes,  and  settlement  into  more  or  less 
permanent  villages,  have  increased  the  height  of  the 
present  generation  and  helped  to  remove  one  of  the  last 
human  links  with  Stanley's  great  day. 

The  Congo  River  native  is  perhaps  the  shrewdest  in 


ON    THE    CONGO    RIVER  197 

all  Central  Africa.  He  is  a  born  trader,  and  he  can 
convert  the  conventional  shoe-string  into  something 
worth  while.  One  reason  why  the  Bangalas  take  posi- 
tions as  firemen  and  woodboys  on  the  river  boats  is  that 
it  enables  them  to  go  into  business.  The  price  of  food  at 
the  small  settlements  up  river  is  much  less  than  at 
Kinshassa,  where  navigation  from  Stanleyville  south- 
ward ends.  Hence  the  blacks  acquire  considerable 
stores  of  palm  oil  and  dried  fish  at  the  various  stops 
made  by  the  steamers  and  dispose  of  it  with  large  profit 
when  they  reach  the  end  of  the  journey.  I  have  in 
mind  the  experience  of  a  capita  on  the  "Comte  de 
Flandre."  When  we  left  Stanleyville  his  cash  capital 
was  thirty-five  francs.  With  this  he  purchased  a  suffi- 
cient quantity  of  food,  which  included  dozens  of  pieces 
of  chikwanga,  to  realize  two  hundred  and  twenty  francs 
at  Kinshassa. 

These  river  natives  are  genuine  profiteers.  They 
invariably  make  it  a  rule  to  charge  the  white  man  three 
or  four  times  the  price  they  exact  from  their  own  kind. 
No  white  man  ever  thinks  of  buying  anything  himself. 
He  always  sends  one  of  his  servants.  As  soon  as  the 
vendor  knows  that  the  servant  is  in  the  white  employ 
he  shoves  up  the  price.  I  discovered  this  state  of  affairs 
as  soon  as  I  started  down  the  Lualaba.  In  my  innocence 
I  paid  two  francs  for  a  bunch  of  bananas.  The  moment 
I  had  closed  the  deal  I  observed  larger  and  better 
bunches  being  purchased  by  natives  for  fifty  centimes. 

This  business  of  profiteering  by  the  natives  is  no  new 
phase  of  life  in  the  Congo.  Stanley  discovered  it  to  his 
cost.  Sir  Harry  Johnston,  the  distinguished  explorer 
and  administrator,  who  added  to  his  achievements  during 
these  past  years  by  displaying  skill  and  brilliancy  as  a 
novelist,  tells  a  characteristic  story  that  throws  light  on 


198         AN   AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

the  subject.  It  deals  with  one  of  the  experiences  of 
George  Grenfell,  the  eminent  British  missionary  who 
gave  thirty  years  of  his  unselfish  life  to  work  in  the 
Congo.  On  one  of  his  trips  he  noticed  the  corpse  of  a 
woman  hanging  from  the  branches  of  a  tree  over  the 
water  of  the  great  river.  At  first  he  thought  that  she  had 
been  executed  as  a  punishment  for  adultery,  one  of  the 
most  serious  crimes  in  the  native  calendar.  On  investi- 
gation he  found  that  she  had  been  guilty  of  a  much  more 
serious  offense.  A  law  had  been  imposed  that  all  goods, 
especially  food,  must  be  sold  to  the  white  man  at  a  far 
higher  price  than  the  local  market  value.  This  unhappy 
woman  had  only  doubled  the  quotation  for  eggs,  had 
been  convicted  of  breaking  the  code,  and  had  suffered 
death  in  consequence. 

Since  I  have  referred  to  adultery,  let  me  point  out 
a  situation  that  does  not  reflect  particular  credit  on  so- 
called  civilization.  Before  the  white  man  came  to 
Africa  chastity  was  held  in  deepest  reverence.  The 
usual  punishment  for  infidelity  was  death.  Some  of  the 
early  white  men  were  more  or  less  promiscuous  and  set 
a  bad  moral  example  with  regard  to  the  women.  The 
native  believed  that  in  this  respect  "the  white  man  can 
do  no  wrong"  and  the  inevitable  laxity  resulted.  When 
a  woman  deserts  her  husband  now  all  she  gets  is  a 
sound  beating.  If  a  man  elopes  with  the  wife  of  a 
friend,  he  is  haled  before  a  magistrate  and  fined. 


THE  HEART  OF  THE  EQUATORIAL  FOREST 


Ill 

ON  THE  Congo  I  got  my  first  glimpse  of  the 
native  fashion  in  mourning.  It  is  a  sm^val 
of  the  biblical  "sackcloth  and  ashes."  As  soon 
as  a  death  occurs  all  the  members  of  the  family  smear 
their  faces  and  bodies  with  ashes  or  dirt.  Even  the 
babies  show  these  rude  symbols  of  woe.  It  gives  the 
person  thus  adorned  a  weird  and  ghastly  appearance. 
When  ashes  and  dust  are  not  available  for  this  purpose, 
a  substitute  is  found  in  filthy  mud.  The  mourner  is  not 
permitted  to  wash  throughout  the  entire  period  of  grief, 
which  ranges  from  thirty  to  ninety  days. 

Like  the  Southern  Negro  in  America  these  African 
natives  are  not  only  born  actors  but  have  a  keen  sense  of 
humour.  They  are  quick  to  imitate  the  white  man.  If 
a  Georgia  darkey,  for  example,  wants  to  abuse  a  mem- 
ber of  his  own  race  he  delights  to  call  him  "a  fool 
nigger."  It  is  the  last  word  in  reproach.  In  the  Congo 
when  a  native  desires  to  express  contempt  for  his  fel- 
low, he  refers  to  him  as  a  hasingi,  which  means  bush- 
man.    It  is  a  case  of  the  pot  calling  the  kettle  black. 

Up  the  Kasai  I  heard  a  story  that  admirably  illus- 
trates the  native  humour.  A  Belgian  official  much  in- 
clined to  corpulency  came  out  to  take  charge  of  a 
post.  After  the  usual  fashion,  he  received  a  native  name 
the  moment  he  arrived.  It  is  not  surprising  that  he  be- 
came known  as  Mafutta  Mingi.  As  soon  as  he  learned 
what  it  meant  he  became  indignant.  Like  most  fat  men 
he  could  not  persuade  himself  that  he  was  fat.     He 

199 


200         AN   AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

demanded  that  he  be  given  another  title,  whereupon  the 
local  chief  solemnly  dubbed  him  Kiboko.  The  official 
was  immediately  appeased.  He  noticed  that  a  broad 
smile  invariably  illumined  the  countenance  of  the  person 
who  addressed  him  in  this  way.  On  investigation  he 
discovered  that  the  word  meant  hippopotamus. 

The  Congo  native  delights  in  argument.  Here  you 
get  another  parallel  with  his  American  brother.  A 
Bangala,  for  example,  will  talk  for  a  week  about  five 
centimes.  One  day  at  Dima  I  heard  a  terrific  shouting 
and  exhorting  down  at  the  native  market  which  is  held 
twice  a  week.  I  was  certain  that  someone  was  being 
murdered.  When  I  arrived  on  the  scene  I  saw  a  hun- 
dred men  and  women  gesticulating  wildly  and  in  a 
great  state  of  excitement.  I  learned  that  the  wife  of 
a  wood-boy  on  a  boat  had  either  secreted  or  sold  a  scrap 
of  soap,  and  her  husband  was  not  only  berating  her  with 
his  tongue  but  telling  the  whole  community  about  it. 

The  chief  function  of  most  Belgian  officials  in  the 
Congo  is  to  preside  at  what  is  technically  known  as  a 
"palaver."  This  word  means  conference  but  it  actually 
develops  into  a  free-for-all  riotous  protestation  by  the 
natives  involved.  They  all  want  to  talk  at  the  same 
time  and  it  is  like  an  Irish  debating  society.  Years  ago 
each  village  had  a  "palaver  ground,"  where  the  chief 
sat  in  solemn  judgment  on  the  disputes  of  his  henchmen. 
Now  the  "palavers"  are  held  before  Government  offi- 
cers. Most  of  the  "palavers"  that  I  heard  related  to 
elopements.  No  matter  how  grievous  was  the  offense 
of  the  male  he  invariably  shifted  the  entire  responsibility 
to  the  woman.  He  was  merely  emulating  the  ways  of 
civilization. 

Between  Stanleyville  and  Kinshassa  we  not  only 
stopped  every  night  according  to  custom,  but  halted  at 


ON    THE    CONGO    RIVER  201 

not  less  than  a  dozen  settlements  to  take  on  or  deliver 
cargo.  These  stations  resemble  each  other  in  that  they 
are  mainly  a  cluster  of  stores  owned  or  operated  by 
agents  of  various  trading  companies.  Practically  every 
post  in  the  Congo  has,  in  addition,  a  shop  owned  by  a 
Portuguese.  You  find  these  traders  everywhere.  They 
have  something  of  the  spirit  of  adventure  and  the  hardi- 
hood of  their  doughty  ancestors  who  planted  the  flag 
of  Portugal  on  the  high  sease  back  in  that  era  when  the 
little  kingdom  was  a  world  power. 

Some  of  them  have  been  in  the  Congo  for  fifteen  and 
twenty  years  without  ever  stirring  outside  its  confines. 
On  the  steamer  that  took  me  to  Europe  from  the  Congo 
was  a  Portuguese  who  had  lived  in  the  bush  for  twenty- 
two  years.  When  he  got  on  the  big  steamer  he  was 
frightened  at  the  noise  and  practically  remained  in  his 
cabin  throughout  the  entire  voyage.  As  we  neared 
France  he  told  me  that  if  he  had  realized  beforehand  the 
terror  and  tumult  of  the  civilization  that  he  had  for- 
gotten, he  never  would  have  departed  from  his  jungle 
home.    He  was  as  shy  as  a  wild  animal. 

One  settlement,  Basoko,  has  a  tragic  meaning  for  the 
Anglo-Saxon.  Here  died  and  lies  buried,  the  gallant 
Grenfell.  I  doubt  if  exploration  anywhere  revealed  a 
nobler  character  than  this  Baptist  minister  whose  career 
has  been  so  adequately  presented  by  Sir  Harry 
Johnston,  and  who  ranks  with  Stanley  and  Livingstone 
as  one  of  the  foremost  of  African  explorers.  In  the 
Congo  evangelization  has  been  fraught  with  a  truly 
noble  fortitude.  When  you  see  the  handicaps  that  have 
beset  both  Catholic  and  Protestant  missionaries  you  are 
filled  with  a  new  appreciation  of  their  calling. 

The  most  important  stop  of  this  trip  was  at  Coquil- 
hatville,  named  in  honor  of  Captain  Coquilhat,  one  of 


202         AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

the  most  courageous  of  the  early  Belgian  soldier-ex. 
plorers.  It  was  the  original  Equatorville  (it  is  at  the 
point  where  the  Equator  cuts  the  Congo),  founded  by 
Stanley  when  he  established  the  series  of  stations  under 
the  auspices  of  the  International  African  Association. 
Here  dwells  the  Vice-Governor  of  the  Equatorial  Prov- 
ince. Near  by  is  a  botanical  garden  maintained  by  the 
Colonial  Government  and  which  contains  specimens  of 
all  the  flora  of  Central  Africa. 

At  Coquilhatville  I  saw  the  first  horse  since  I  left 
Rhodesia  and  it  was  a  distinct  event.  Except  in  the 
Kasai  region  it  is  impossible  to  maintain  live  stock  in 
the  Congo.  The  tsetse  fly  is  the  devastating  agency. 
Apparently  the  only  beasts  able  to  withstand  this 
scourge  are  goats  and  dogs.  The  few  white  men  who 
live  in  Coquilhatville  have  been  able  to  maintain  five 
horses  which  are  used  by  the  so-called  Riding  Club. 
These  animals  provide  the  only  exercise  at  the  post. 
They  are  owned  and  ridden  by  the  handful  of  English- 
men there.  A  man  must  drive  himself  to  indulge  in  any 
form  of  outdoor  sport  along  the  equator.  The  climate  is 
more  or  less  enervating  and  it  takes  real  Anglo-Saxon 
energy  to  resist  the  lure  of  the  siesta  or  to  remain  in  bed 
as  long  as  possible. 

Bolobo  is  a  reminder  of  Stanley.  He  had  more 
trouble  here  than  at  any  of  the  many  stations  he  set  up 
in  the  Congo  Free  State  in  the  early  eighties.  The 
natives  were  hostile,  the  men  he  left  in  charge  proved  to 
be  inefficient,  and  on  two  occasions  the  settlement  was 
burned  to  the  ground.  Today  it  is  the  seat  of  one  of 
the  largest  and  most  prosperous  of  all  the  English 
Baptist  Congo  missions  and  is  presided  over  by  a  Congo 
veteran,  Dr.  Stonelake.  One  feature  of  the  work  here 
is  a  manual  training  school  for  natives,  who  manufacture 


ON    THE    CONGO    RIVER  203 

the  same  kind  of  wicker  chairs  that  the  tourist  buys  at 
Madeira. 

The  farther  I  travelled  in  the  Congo  the  more  deeply 
I  became  interested  in  the  native  habits  and  customs. 
Although  cluttered  with  ignorance  and  superstition  the 
barbaric  mind  is  strangely  productive  of  a  rude  philoso- 
phy which  is  expressed  in  a  quaint  folklore.  Seasoned 
Congo  travellers  like  Grenfell,  Stanley,  Ward,  and 
Johnston  have  all  recorded  fascinating  local  legends. 
I  heard  many  of  these  tales  myself  and  I  shall  en- 
deavour to  relate  the  best. 

Some  of  the  most  characteristic  stories  deal  with 
the  origin  of  death.  Here  is  a  Bangala  tradition  gath- 
ered by  Grenfell  and  which  runs  as  follows: 

The  natives  say  that  in  the  beginning  men  and  women 
did  not  die.  That  one  day,  Nza  Komha  (God)  came  bringing 
two  gifts,  a  large  and  a  small  one.  If  they  chose  the  smaller 
one  they  would  continue  to  live,  but  if  the  larger  one,  they 
would  for  a  time  enjoy  much  greater  wealth,  but  they 
would  afterwards  die.  The  men  said  they  must  consider  the 
matter,  and  went  away  to  drink  water,  as  the  Kongos  say. 
While  they  were  discussing  the  matter  the  women  took  the 
larger  gift,  and  Nza  Komha  went  back  with  the  little  one. 
He  has  never  been  seen  since,  though  they  cried  and  cried  for 
Him  to  come  back  and  take  the  big  bundle  and  give  them 
the  little  one,  and  with  it  immortality. 

The  Baluba  version  of  the  great  mystery  is  set  forth 
in  this  way: 

God  {Kahezya-unpungu)  created  the  sun,  moon,  and 
stars,  then  the  world,  and  later  the  plants  and  animals. 
When  all  this  was  finished  He  placed  a  man  and  two  women 
in  the  world  and  taught  them  the  name  and  use  of  all  things. 
He  gave  an  axe  and  a  knife  to  the  man,  and  taught  him  to 
2ut  wood,  weave  stuffs,  melt  iron,  and  to  hunt  and  fish.     To 


204         AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

the  women  he  gave  a  pickaxe  and  a  knife.  He  taught  both 
of  them  to  till  the  ground,  make  pottery,  weave  baskets,  make 
oil,  —  that  is  to  say,  all  that  custom  assigns  to  them  to-day. 

These  first  inhabitants  of  the  earth  lived  happily  for  a 
long  time  until  one  of  the  women  began  to  grow  old.  God, 
foreseeing  this,  had  given  her  the  gift  of  rejuvenating  her- 
self, and  the  faculty,  if  she  once  succeeded,  of  preserving  the 
gift  for  herself  and  for  all  mankind.  Unfortunately,  she 
speedily  lost  the  precious  treasure  and  introduced  death  into 
the  world. 

This  is  how  the  misfortune  occurred:  Seeing  herself  all 
withered,  the  woman  took  the  fan  with  which  her  companion 
had  been  winnowing  maize  for  the  manufacture  of  beer  and 
shut  herself  into  her  hut,  carefully  closing  the  door.  There 
she  began  to  tear  off  her  old  skin,  throwing  it  on  the  fan. 
The  skin  came  off  easily,  a  new  one  appearing  in  its  place. 
The  operation  was  nearing  completion.  There  remained  the 
head  and  neck  only  when  her  companion  came  to  the  hut  to 
fetch  her  fan  and  before  the  old  woman  could  speak,  pushed 
open  the  door.  The  almost  rejuvenated  woman  fell  dead 
instantly. 

This  is  the  reason  we  all  die.  The  two  survivors  gave  birth 
to  a  number  of  sons  and  daughters,  from  whom  all  races  have 
descended.  Since  that  time  God  does  not  trouble  about  His 
creatures.  He  is  satisfied  with  visiting  them  incognito  now  and 
again.  Wherever  He  passes  the  ground  sinks.  He  injures 
no  one.  It  is  therefore  superfluous  to  honour  him,  so  the 
Balubas  offer  no  worship  to  Him. 

The  animal  story  has  a  high  place  in  the  legends  of 
these  peoples.  They  represent  a  combination  of  Kip- 
ling's Jungle  Book,  Aesop's  Fables,  and  Br'er  Rabbit. 
Nor  do  they  fail  to  point  a  moral.  Naturally,  the  ele- 
phant is  a  conspicuous  feature  in  most  of  them.  The 
tale  of  "The  Elephant  and  the  Shrew"  will  illustrate. 
Here  it  is : 


NATIVES  PILING  WOOD 


A  WOOD  POST  ON   THE  CONGO 


ON    THE    CONGO    RIVER  205 

One  day  the  elephant  met  the  shrew  mouse  on  his  road. 
"Out  of  the  way,"  cried  the  latter.  "I  am  the  bigger,  and 
it  is  your  place  to  look  out,"  replied  the  monster.  "Curse 
you!"  retorted  the  shrew  mouse  furiously.  "May  the  long 
grass  cut  your  legs!"  "And  may  you  meet  your  death  when 
you  walk  in  the  road!"  replied  the  other  crushing  him  under 
his  huge  foot.  Both  curses  have  been  fulfilled.  From  that  day 
the  elephant  wounds  himself  when  he  goes  through  the  long 
grass,  and  the  shrew-mouse  meets  her  death  when  she  crosses 
the  road. 

The  story  of  the  elephant  and  the  chameleon  is  equally 
interesting.  One  day  the  chameleon  challenged  the 
elephant  to  a  race.  The  latter  accepted  the  challenge 
and  a  meeting  was  arranged  for  the  following  morning. 
During  the  night  the  chameleon  placed  all  his 
brothers  from  point  to  point  along  the  length  of  the 
track  where  the  race  was  to  be  run.  When  day  came  the 
elephant  started.  The  chameleon  quickly  slipped  be- 
hind without  the  elephant  noticing.  "Are  you  not 
tired?"  asked  the  monster  of  the  first  chameleon  he  met. 
"Not  at  all,"  he  replied,  executing  the  same  manoeuvre 
as  the  former.  This  stratagem  was  renewed  so  many 
times  that  the  elephant,  tired  out,  gave  up  the  contest 
and  confessed  himself  beaten. 

In  the  wilds,  as  in  civilization,  the  relation  between 
husband  and  wife,  and  more  especially  the  downfall  of 
the  autocrat  of  the  home,  is  a  favorite  subject  for  jest. 
From  the  northeastern  corner  of  the  Congo  comes  this 
illuminating  story: 

A  man  had  two  wives,  one  gentle  and  prepossessing,  the 
other  such  a  gossip  that  he  was  often  made  angry.  Neither 
remonstrances  nor  beating  improved  her,  and  finally  he  made 
up  his  mind  to  drive  her  into  a  wood  amongst  the  hyenas. 
There  she  built  herself  a  little  hut  into  which  a  hyena  came 


206         AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

and  boldly  installed  herself  as  mistress.  The  wife  tried  to 
protest  but  the  hyena,  not  content  with  eating  and  drinking 
all  that  the  wife  was  preparing,  compelled  her  furthermore  to 
look  after  her  young.  One  day  the  hyena  had  ordered  the 
woman  to  boil  some  water.  While  waiting  the  wife  had  the 
sudden  idea  of  seizing  the  young  hyenas  and  throwing  them 
into  the  boiling  water.  She  did  this  and  then  she  ran  trembling 
to  take  refuge  in  the  home  of  her  husband  whom  she  found 
calmly  seated  at  the  entrance  of  the  house,  spear  in  hand. 
She  threw  herself  at  the  feet  of  her  spouse,  beseeching  him  for 
help  and  protection.  When  the  hyena  arrived  foaming  with 
rage  her  husband  stretched  it  dead  on  the  ground  with  a  blow 
of  his  spear.  The  lesson  was  not  lost  on  the  wife.  From  that 
day  forth  she  became  the  joy  and  delight  of  her  husband. 

The  Congo  can  ever  reproduce  its  own  version  of  the 
fable  of  "The  Goose  that  Laid  the  Golden  Egg."  It  is 
somewhat  primitive  but  serves  the  same  purpose.  As 
told  to  the  naked  piccaninnies  by  the  flickering  camp- 
fires  it  runs  thus: 

Four  fools  owned  a  chicken  which  laid  blue  glass  beads  in- 
stead of  eggs.  A  quarrel  arose  concerning  the  ownership  of 
the  fowl.  The  bird  was  subsequently  killed  and  divided  into 
four  equal  portions.  The  spring  of  their  good  fortune  dried 
up. 

To  understand  the  significance  of  the  story  it  must 
be  understood  that  for  many  years  beads  have  been  one 
of  the  forms  of  currency  in  Central  Africa.  Formerly 
they  were  as  important  a  detail  in  the  purchase  of  a  wife 
as  copper  and  calico.  The  first  piece  of  attire,  if  it  may 
be  designated  by  this  name,  that  adorns  the  native  baby 
after  its  entrance  into  the  world  is  an  anklet  of  blue 
beads.    Later  a  strand  of  beads  is  placed  round  its  loins. 

When  you  have  heard  such  stories  as  I  have  just  re- 


ON    THE    CONGO   RIVER  207 

lated,  you  realize  that  despite  his  ignorance,  appetite, 
and  indolence,  the  Congo  native  has  some  desirable 
qualities.  He  is  shiftless  but  not  without  human  in- 
stincts. Nowhere  are  they  better  expressed  than  in 
his  folklore. 


IV 

Two  STOPS  on  the  Congo  River  deserve 
special  attention.  In  the  Congo  there  began  in 
1911  an  industry  that  will  have  an  important 
bearing  on  the  economic  development  of  the  Colony.  It 
was  the  installation  of  the  first  plant  of  the  Huileries  du 
Congo  Beige.  This  Company,  which  is  an  offshoot  of  the 
many  Lever  enterprises  of  England,  resulted  from  the 
growing  need  of  palm  oil  as  a  substitute  for  animal  fat  in 
soap-making.  Lord  Leverhulme,  who  was  then  Sir 
William  Lever,  obtained  a  concession  for  considerably 
more  than  a  million  acres  of  palm  forests  in  the  Congo. 
He  began  to  open  up  so-called  areas  and  install  mills 
for  boiling  the  fruit  and  drying  the  kernels.  He  now 
has  eight  areas,  and  two  of  them,  Elizabetha  and 
Alberta,  —  I  visited  both  —  are  on  the  Congo  River. 

For  hundreds  of  years  the  natives  have  gathered  the 
palm  fruit  and  extracted  the  oil.  Under  their  method 
of  manufacture  the  waste  was  enormous.  The  blacks 
threw  away  the  kernel  because  they  were  unaware  of 
the  valuable  substance  inside.  Lord  Leverhulme  was 
the  first  to  organize  the  industry  on  a  big  and  scientific 
basis  and  it  has  justified  his  confidence  and  expenditure. 

Most  people  are  familiar  with  the  date  and  the  cocoa- 
nut  palms.  From  the  days  of  the  Bible  they  have 
figured  in  narrative  and  picture.  The  oil  palm,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  less  known  but  much  more  valuable.  It 
is  the  staff  of  life  in  the  Congo  and  for  that  matter, 
practically  all  West  Africa.    Thousands  of  years  ago 

208 


ON    THE    CONGO   RIVER  209 

its  sap  was  used  by  the  Egyptians  for  embalming  the 
bodies  of  their  kingly  dead.  Today  it  not  only  repre- 
sents the  most  important  agricultural  industry  of  the 
Colony,  having  long  since  surpassed  rubber  as  the 
premier  product,  but  it  has  an  almost  bewildering 
variety  of  uses.  It  is  food,  drink  and  shelter.  Out  of 
the  trunk  the  native  extracts  his  wine;  from  the  fruit, 
and  this  includes  the  kernel,  are  obtained  oil  for  soap, 
salad  dressing  and  margarine;  the  leaves  provide  a 
roof  for  the  native  houses;  the  fibre  is  made  into  mats, 
baskets  or  strings  for  fishing  nets,  while  the  wood  goes 
into  construction.  Even  the  bugs  that  live  on  it  are  food 
for  men. 

The  "H.  C.  B."  as  the  Huileries  du  Congo  Beige  is 
more  commonly  known  in  the  Congo,  really  performed 
a  courageous  act  in  exploitation  when  it  set  up  shop  in 
the  remote  regions  and  devoted  itself  to  an  absolutely 
fresh  enterprise,  so  far  as  extensive  development  is  con- 
cerned, at  a  time  when  the  rich  and  profitable  products 
of  the  country  were  rubber,  ivory  and  copal.  The  com- 
pany's initiative,  therefore,  instigated  the  trade  in 
oleaginous  products  which  is  so  conspicuous  in  the 
economic  life  of  the  country. 

The  installation  at  Alberta,  while  not  so  large  as  the 
Leverville  area  on  the  Kwilu  River,  will  serve  to  show 
just  what  the  corporation  is  doing.  Five  years  ago  this 
region  was  the  jungle.  Today  it  is  the  model  settlement 
on  the  Congo  River.  The  big  brick  office  building 
stands  on  a  brow  of  the  hill  overlooking  the  water.  Not 
far  away  is  the  large  mill  where  the  palm  fruit  is  reduced 
to  oil  and  the  kernels  dried.  Stretching  away  from  the 
river  is  a  long  avenue  of  palms,  flanked  by  the  com- 
modious brick  bungalows  of  the  white  employes.  The 
"H.  C.  B."  maintains  a  store  at  each  of  its  areas,  where 


210         AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

food  and  supplies  are  bought  by  the  personnel.  These 
stores  are  all  operated  by  the  Societe  d'Entreprises 
Commerciales  au  Congo  Beige,  known  locally  under  the 
name  of  "Sedec,"  formed  as  its  name  indicated,  with  a 
view  of  benefiting  by  the  great  resources  opened  to 
commerce  in  the  Colony. 

For  miles  in  every  direction  the  Company  has  laid 
out  extensive  palm  plantations.  In  the  Alberta  region 
twenty-five  hundred  acres  are  in  course  of  cultivation 
in  what  is  known  as  the  Eastern  Development,  while 
sixteen  hundred  more  acres  are  embodied  in  the  Western 
development.  An  oil  palm  will  bear  fruit  within  seven 
years  after  the  young  tree  is  planted.  The  fruit  comes 
in  what  is  called  a  regime,  which  resembles  a  huge  bunch 
of  grapes.  It  is  a  thick  cluster  of  palm  fruit.  Each 
fruit  is  about  the  size  of  a  large  date.  The  outer  por- 
tion, the  pericarp,  is  almost  entirely  yellow  oil  incased 
in  a  thick  skin.  Imbedded  in  this  oil  is  the  kernel,  which 
contains  an  even  finer  oil.  The  fruit  is  boiled  down  and 
the  kernel,  after  a  drying  process,  is  exported  in  bags 
to  England,  where  it  is  broken  open  and  the  contents 
used  for  salad  oil  or  margarine. 

Before  the  war  thousands  of  tons  of  palm  oil  and 
kernels  were  shipped  from  the  West  Coast  of  Africa  to 
Germany  every  year.  Now  they  are  diverted  to  Eng- 
land where  large  kernel-crushing  plants  have  been  in- 
stalled and  the  whole  activity  has  become  a  British 
enterprise.  With  the  eclipse  of  the  German  Colonial 
Empire  in  Africa  it  is  not  likely  that  she  can  regain  this 
lost  business. 

The  creation  of  new  palmeries  is  merely  one  phase  of 
the  company's  development.  One  of  its  largest  tasks 
is  to  safeguard  the  immense  natural  palmeries  on  its 
concessions.    The  oil  palm  requires  constant  attention. 


RESIDENTIAL  QUARTERS  AT  ALBERTA 


THE  COMTE  DE  FLANDRE 


ON    THE    CONGO    RIVER  211 

The  undergrowth  spreads  rapidly  and  if  it  is  not  re- 
moved is  liable  to  impair  the  life  of  the  tree.  Thou- 
sands of  natives  are  employed  on  this  work.  A  large 
knife  something  like  the  Cuban  machete  is  used. 

Harvesting  the  regimes  is  a  spectacular  performance 
not  without  its  element  of  danger.  The  regime  grows 
at  the  top  of  the  tree,  usually  a  height  of  sixty  or 
seventy-five  feet  and  sometimes  more.  The  native 
literally  walks  up  the  trunk  with  the  help  of  a  loop 
made  from  some  stout  vine  which  encircles  him.  Arriv- 
ing at  the  top  he  fixes  his  feet  against  the  trunk,  leans 
against  the  loop  which  holds  him  fast,  and  hacks  away 
at  the  regime.  It  falls  with  a  heavy  thud  and  woe  be- 
tide the  human  being  or  the  animal  it  strikes.  The 
natives  will  not  cut  fruit  in  rainy  weather  because  many 
have  slipped  on  the  wet  bark  and  fallen  to  their  death. 

So  wide  is  the  Alberta  fruit-producing  area  that  a 
narrow-gauge  railway  is  necessary  to  bring  the  fruit  in 
to  the  mill.  Along  its  line  are  various  stations  where  the 
fruit  is  mobilized,  stripped  from  the  regime  and  sent 
down  for  refining  in  baskets.  Each  station  has  a  super- 
intendent who  lives  on  the  spot.  The  personnel  of  all 
the  staff  in  the  Congo  is  almost  equally  divided  between 
British  and  Belgians. 

While  the  "H.  C.  B."  is  the  largest  factor  in  the 
palm  oil  industry  in  the  Congo,  many  tons  of  kernels 
are  gathered  every  year  by  individuals  who  include  thou- 
sands of  natives.  One  reason  why  the  savage  takes 
naturally  to  this  occupation  is  that  it  demands  little 
work.  All  that  he  is  required  to  do  is  to  climb  a  tree  in 
the  jungle  and  lop  off  a  regime.  He  uses  the  palm  oil 
for  his  own  needs  or  disposes  of  it  to  a  member  of  his 
tribe  and  sells  the  kernels  to  the  white  man. 

The  "H.  C.  B."  is  independent  of  all  other  water 


212         AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

transport  in  the  Congo.  Its  river  tonnage  aggregates 
more  than  6,000,  and  in  addition  it  has  many  oil  barges 
on  the  various  rivers  where  its  vessels  ply.  The  capacity 
of  some  of  the  barges  is  250  tons  of  oil.  They  are 
usually  lashed  to  the  side  of  the  steamer.  The  decks  of 
these  barges  are  often  piled  high  with  bags  of  kernels 
and  become  a  favorite  sleeping  place  for  the  black 
voyagers  for  whom  the  thousands  of  insects  that  lurk 
in  them  have  no  terrors.  No  bug  inflicts  a  sharper  sting 
than  these  pests  who  make  their  habitat  among  the  palm 
kernels. 

One  of  my  fellow  passengers  on  the  "Comte  de 
Flandre"  was  I.  F.  Braham,  the  Associate  Managing 
Director  of  the  "H.  C.  B."  in  the  Congo.  Long  the 
friend  and  companion  in  Liberia  of  Sir  Harry  Johnston, 
he  was  a  most  desirable  and  congenial  companion.  It 
was  on  his  suggestion  and  invitation  that  I  spent  the 
week  at  Alberta  and  he  shared  the  visit.  Our  hosts 
were  Major  and  Mrs.  Claude  Wallace. 

Major  Wallace  was  the  District  Manager  of  the 
Alberta  area  and  occupied  a  brick  bungalow  on  the 
bank  of  the  river.  He  is  a  pioneer  in  exploration  in  the 
French  Congo  and  Liberia  and  went  almost  straight 
from  the  battlefields  of  France,  where  he  served  with 
distinction  in  the  World  War,  out  to  his  post  in  the 
Congo.  His  wife  is  a  fine  example  of  the  white  woman 
who  has  braved  the  dangers  of  the  tropics.  She  left  the 
luxury  and  convenience  of  European  life  to  establish 
a  home  in  the  jungle. 

It  is  easy  to  spot  the  refining  influence  of  the  woman 
in  the  African  habitation.  You  always  see  the  effect 
long  before  you  behold  the  cause.  One  of  these  effects 
is  usually  a  neat  garden.  Mrs.  Wallace  had  half  an 
acre  of  English  roses  in  front  of  her  house.    They  were 


ON    THE    CONGO    RIVER  213 

the  only  ones  I  saw  in  Central  Africa.  The  average 
bachelor  in  this  part  of  the  world  is  not  particularly- 
scrupulous  about  the  appearance  of  his  house.  The 
moment  you  observe  curtains  at  the  window  you  know 
that  there  is  a  female  on  the  premises. 

My  life  at  Alberta  was  one  of  the  reuUy  delightful 
experiences  in  the  Congo.  Every  morning  I  set  out 
with  Braham  and  Wallace  on  some  tour  of  inspection. 
Often  we  rode  part  of  the  way  on  the  little  light  railroad. 
The  method  of  transport  was  unique.  An  ordinary 
bench  is  placed  on  a  small  flat  car.  The  propelling 
power  is  furnished  by  two  husky  natives  who  stand  on 
either  side  of  the  bench  and  literally  shove  the  vehicle 
along  with  long  sticks.  It  is  like  paddling  a  railroad 
canoe.  This  transportation  freak  is  technically  called  a 
maculla.  The  strong-armed  paddlers  were  able  to  de- 
velop an  astonishing  speed.  I  think  that  this  is  the 
only  muscle-power  railroad  in  the  world.  Light  en- 
gines are  employed  for  hauling  the  palm  fruit  trains. 

After  our  day  in  the  field  —  for  frequently  we  took 
ur  lunch  with  us  —  we  returned  before  sunset  and 
bathed  and  dressed  for  dinner.  In  the  Congo  only  a 
madman  would  take  a  cold  plunge.  The  most  healthful 
immersion  is  in  tepid  water.  More  than  one  English- 
man has  paid  the  penalty  with  his  life,  by  continuing 
his  traditional  cold  bath  in  the  tropics.  This  reminds  me 
of  a  significant  fact  in  connection  with  colonization. 
Everyone  must  admit  that  the  Briton  is  the  best  colo- 
nizer in  the  world.  One  reason  is  that  he  knows  how  to 
rule  the  man  of  colour  for  he  does  it  with  fairness  and 
firmness.  Another  lies  in  the  fact  that  he  not  only 
keeps  himself  clean  but  he  makes  his  environment  sani- 
tary. 

There  is  a  tradition  that  the  Constitution  follows  the 


214         AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

flag.  I  contend  that  with  the  Englishman  the  bath-tub 
precedes  the  code  of  law  and  what  is  more  important,  it 
is  in  daily  use.  There  are  a  good  many  bath-tubs  in  the 
Congo  but  they  are  employed  principally  as  receptacles 
for  food  supplies  and  soiled  linen. 

Those  evenings  at  Alberta  were  as  unforgetable  as 
their  setting.  Braham  and  Wallace  were  not  only  men 
of  the  world  but  they  had  read  extensively  and  had 
travelled  much.  A  wide  range  of  subjects  came  under 
discussion  at  that  hospitable  table  whose  spotless  linen 
and  soft  shaded  lights  were  more  reminiscent  of  London 
and  New  York  than  suggestive  of  a  far-away  post  on 
the  Congo  River  on  the  edge  of  the  wilderness. 

At  Alberta  as  elsewhere,  the  "H.  C.  B."  is  a  moral 
force.  Each  area  has  a  doctor  and  a  hospital.  No  de- 
tail of  its  medical  work  is  more  vital  to  the  productive 
life  of  the  Colony  that  the  inoculation  of  the  natives 
against  sleeping  sickness.  This  dread  disease  is  the 
scourge  of  the  Congo  and  every  year  takes  toll  of  him- 
dreds  of  thousands  of  natives.  Nor  is  the  white  man 
immune.  I  saw  a  Belgian  official  dying  of  this  loath- 
some malady  in  a  hospital  at  Matadi  and  I  shall  never 
forget  his  ravings.  The  last  stage  of  the  illness  is  al- 
ways a  period  when  the  victim  becomes  demented.  The 
greatest  boon  that  could  possibly  be  held  out  for  Cen- 
tral Africa  today  would  be  the  prevention  of  sleeping 
sickness. 

Another  constructive  work  carried  out  under  the 
auspices  of  the  "H.  C.  B."  is  embodied  in  the  native 
schools.  There  is  an  excellent  one  at  Alberta.  It  is 
conducted  by  the  Catholic  Fathers  of  the  Scheut  Mis- 
sion. The  children  are  trained  to  become  wood-workers, 
machinists,  painters,  and  carpenters.  It  is  the  Booker 
Washington  idea  transplanted  in   the   jungle.     5jhe 


ON    THE    CONGO    RIVER  215 

Scheut  Missionaries  and  their  Jesuit  colleagues  are  do- 
ing an  admirable  service  throughout  the  Congo.  Some 
of  them  are  infused  with  the  spirit  that  animated  Father 
Damien.  Time,  distance,  and  isolation  count  for  naught 
with  them.  It  is  no  uncommon  thing  to  encounter  in 
the  bush  a  Catholic  priest  who  has  been  on  continuous 
service  there  for  fifteen  or  twenty  years  without  a  holi- 
day. At  Luluaburg  lives  a  Mother  Superior  who  has 
been  in  the  field  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  without 
wandering  more  than  two  hundred  miles  from  her  field 
of  operations. 


Now  FOR  the  last  stage  of  the  Congo  River 
trip.  Like  so  many  of  my  other  expe- 
riences in  Africa  it  produced  a  surprise. 
One  morning  when  we  were  about  two  hundred  miles 
north  of  Kinshassa  I  heard  the  whir  of  a  motor  engine, 
a  rare  sound  in  those  parts.  I  thought  of  aeroplanes 
and  instinctively  looked  up.  Flying  overhead  toward 
Coquilhatville  was  a  300-horse  power  hydroplane  con- 
taining two  people.  Upon  inquiry  I  discovered  that  it 
was  one  of  four  machines  engaged  in  carrying  passen- 
gers, mail,  and  express  between  Kinshassa  and  Coquil- 
hatville. 

The  campaign  against  the  Germans  in  East  Africa 
proved  the  practicability  of  aeroplanes  in  the  tropics. 
The  Congo  is  the  first  of  the  Central  African  countries 
to  dedicate  aviation  to  commercial  uses  and  this  prec- 
edent is  likely  to  be  extensively  followed.  Fifteen 
hydroplanes  have  been  ordered  for  the  Congo  River 
service  which  will  eventually  be  extended  to  Stanleyville. 
Only  those  who  have  endured  the  agony  of  slow  trans- 
port in  the  Congo  can  realize  the  blessing  that  an*  travel 
will  confer. 

I  was  naturally  curious  to  find  out  just  what  the 
African  native  thought  of  the  aeroplane.  The  moment 
that  the  roar  of  the  engine  broke  the  morning  silence, 
everybody  on  the  boat  rushed  to  some  point  of  vantage 
to  see  the  strange  sight.  The  blacks  slapped  each  other 
on  the  shoulder,  pointed  at  the  machine,  and  laughed 
and  jabbered.     Yet  when  my  secretary  asked  a  big 

216 


A  TYPICAL  OIL  PALM  FOREST 


BRINGING  IN  THE  PALM  FRUIT 


ON    THE    CONGO    RIVER  217 

Baluba  if  he  did  not  think  that  the  aeroplane  was  a 
wonderful  thing  the  barbarian  simply  grunted  and  re- 
plied, "White  man  can  do  anything."  He  summed  up 
the  native  attitude  toward  his  conqueror.  I  believe  that 
if  a  white  man  performed  the  most  astounding  feat  of 
magic  or  necromancy  the  native  would  not  express  the 
slightest  surprise. 

At  Kwamouth,  where  the  Kasai  flows  into  the  Congo 
River,  we  entered  the  so-called  "Channel."  From  this 
point  down  to  Stanley  Pool  the  river  is  deep  and  the 
current  is  swift.  This  means  that  for  a  brief  time  the 
traveller  enjoys  immunity  from  the  danger  of  run- 
ning aground  on  a  sandbank.  The  whole  country-side  is 
changed.  Instead  of  the  low  and  luxuriantly- wooded 
shores  the  banks  become  higher  with  each  passing  hour. 
Soon  the  land  adjacent  to  the  river  merges  into  foot- 
hills and  these  in  turn  taper  off  into  mountains.  The 
effect  is  noble  and  striking.  No  wonder  Stanley  went 
into  ecstasies  over  this  scenery.  He  declared  on  more 
than  one  occasion  that  it  was  as  inspiring  as  any  he  had 
seen  in  Wales  or  Scotland. 

In  the  "Channel"  another  surprise  awaits  the  travel- 
ler. The  mornings  are  bitterly  raw.  This  is  probably 
due  to  the  high  ground  on  either  side  of  the  river  and  the 
strong  currents  of  air  that  sweep  up  the  stream.  I  can 
frankly  say  that  I  really  suffered  from  the  cold  within 
striking  distance  of  the  equator.  I  did  not  feel  com- 
fortable until  I  had  donned  a  heavy  sweater. 

This  sudden  chanere  in  temperature  explains  one  rea- 
son why  so  many  Conoro  natives  die  under  forty.  They 
are  scantily  clad,  perspire  freely,  and  lie  out  at  night 
with  scarcely  anv  covering.  Thev  ero  to  sleep  in  a  humid 
atmosphere  and  wake  up  with  the  temperature  forty 
degrees  lower.    The  natural  result  is  that  half  of  them 


218         AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

constantly  have  colds  and  the  moment  pneumonia  de- 
velops they  succumb.  Congestion  of  the  lungs  vies  with 
sleeping  sickness  as  the  ravager  of  Middle  Africa,  and 
especially  certain  parts  of  the  Congo. 

Kinshassa  is  situated  on  Stanley  Pool,  a  lake-like 
expansion  of  the  Congo  more  than  two  hundred  square 
miles  in  area.  It  is  dotted  with  islands.  Nearly  one- 
third  of  the  northern  shore  is  occupied  by  the  rocky 
formations  that  Stanley  named  Dover  Cliffs.  They  re- 
minded him  of  the  famous  white  cliffs  of  England  and 
with  the  sunlight  on  them  they  do  bear  a  strong  re- 
semblance to  one  of  the  familiar  signposts  of  Albion. 
More  than  one  Englishman  emerging  from  the  jungle 
after  long  service  remote  from  civilization  has  gotten  a 
thrill  of  home  at  the  name  and  sight  of  these  hills. 

Stanley  Pool  has  always  been  associated  in  my  mind 
with  one  of  the  most  picturesque  episodes  in  Stanley's 
life.  He  tells  about  it  in  his  monumental  work  on  the 
Congo  Free  State  and  again  relates  it  in  his  Auto- 
biography. It  deals  with  Ngalyema,  who  was  chief  of 
the  Stanley  Pool  District  in  the  early  eighties.  He  de- 
manded and  received  a  large  quantity  of  goods  for  the 
permission  to  establish  a  station  here.  After  the  ex- 
plorer had  camped  within  ten  miles  of  the  Pool  the  old 
pirate  pretended  that  he  had  not  received  the  goods 
and  sought  to  extort  more.  Stanley  refused  to  be 
bullied,  whereupon  the  chief  threatened  to  attack  him  in 
force.  Let  Stanley  now  tell  the  story,  for  it  is  an  il- 
lustration of  the  way  he  combated  the  usury  and  cun- 
ning of  the  Congo  native. 

I  had  hung  a  great  Chinese  gong  conspicuously  near  the 
principal  tent.  Ngalyema*s  curiosity  would  be  roused.  All  my 
men  were  hidden,  some  in  the  steamboat  on  top  of  the  wagon, 
and  in  its  shadow  was  a  cool  place  where  the  warriors  would 


ON    THE    CONGO   RIVER  219 

gladly  rest  after  a  ten-mile  march.  Other  of  my  men  lay  still 
as  death  under  tarpaulins,  under  bundles  of  grass,  and  in  the 
bush  round  about  the  camp.  By  the  time  the  drum-taps  and 
horns  announced  Ngalyema's  arival,  the  camp  seemed  aban- 
doned except  by  myself  and  a  few  small  boys.  I  was  indolently 
seated  in  a  chair  reading  a  book,  and  appeared  too  lazy  to 
notice  anyone ;  but,  suddenly  looking  up  and  seeing  my  ^'brother 
Ngalyema"  and  his  warriors,  scowlingly  regarding  me,  I  sprang 
up  and  seized  his  hands,  and  affectionately  bade  him  welcome, 
in  the  name  of  sacred  fraternity,  and  offered  him  my  own  chair. 

He  was  strangely  cold,  and  apparently  disgruntled,  and 
said :  — 

"Has  not  my  brother  forgotten  his  road?  What  does  he 
mean  by  coming  to  this  country?" 

"Nay,  it  is  Ngalyema  who  has  forgotten  the  blood-bond 
which  exists  between  us.  It  is  Ngalyema  who  has  forgotten  the 
mountains  of  goods  which  I  paid  him.  What  words  are  these 
of  my  brother?" 

"Be  warned,  Rock-Breaker.  Go  back  before  it  is  too  late. 
My  elders  and  people  all  cry  out  against  allowing  the  white 
man  to  come  into  our  country.  Therefore,  go  back  before  it 
be  too  late.    Go  back,  I  say,  the  way  you  came." 

Speech  and  counter-speech  followed.  Ngalyema  had  ex- 
hausted his  arguments ;  but  it  was  not  easy  to  break  faith  and 
be  uncivil,  with  plausible  excuse.  His  eyes  were  reaching  round 
seeking  to  discover  an  excuse  to  fight,  when  they  rested  on 
the  round,  burnished  face  of  the  Chinese  gong. 

"What  is  that?"  he  said. 

"Ah,  that  —  that  is  a  fetish." 

"A  fetish!    A  fetish  for  what?" 

"It  is  a  war-fetish,  Ngalyema.  The  slightest  sound  of  that 
would  fill  this  empty  camp  with  hundreds  of  angry  warriors ; 
they  would  drop  from  above,  they  would  spring  up  from  the 
ground,  from  the  forest  about,  from  everywhere." 

"Sho!  Tell  that  story  to  the  old  women,  and  not  to  a 
chief  like  Ngalyema.  My  boy  tells  me  it  is  a  kind  of  a  bell. 
Strike  it  and  let  me  hear  it." 


220         AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

"Oh,  Ngalyema,  my  brother,  the  consequences  would  be  too 
dreadful!    Do  not  think  of  such  a  thing!" 

"Strike  it,  I  say." 

"Well,  to  oblige  my  dear  brother  Ngalyema,  I  will." 

And  I  struck  hard  and  fast,  and  the  clangourous  roll  rang 
out  like  thunder  in  the  stillness.  Only  for  a  few  seconds, 
however,  for  a  tempest  of  human  voices  was  heard  bursting 
into  frightful  discords,  and  from  above,  right  upon  the  heads 
of  the  astonished  warriors,  leaped  yelling  men;  and  from  the 
tents,  the  huts,  the  forest  round  about,  they  came  by  sixes, 
dozens,  and  scores,  yelling  like  madmen,  and  seemingly  ani- 
mated with  uncontrollable  rage.  The  painted  warriors  became 
panic-stricken;  they  flung  their  guns  and  powder-kegs  away, 
forgot  their  chief,  and  all  thoughts  of  loyalty,  and  fled  on  the 
instant,  fear  lifting  their  heels  high  in  the  air;  or,  tugging  at 
their  eye-balls,  and  kneading  the  senses  confusedly,  they  saw, 
heard,  and  suspected  nothing,  save  that  the  limbo  of  fetishes 
had  suddenly  broken  loose! 

But  Ngalyema  and  his  son  did  not  fly.  They  caught  the  tails 
of  my  coat,  and  we  began  to  dance  from  side  to  side,  a  loving 
triplet,  myself  being  foremost  to  ward  off  the  blow  savagely 
aimed  at  my  "brothers,"  and  cheerfully  crying  out,  "Hold 
fast  to  me,  my  brothers.  I  will  defend  you  to  the  last  drop 
of  my  blood.    Come  one,  come  all." 

Presently  the  order  was  given,  "Fall  in!"  and  quickly  the 
leaping  forms  became  rigid,  and  the  men  stood  in  two  long 
lines  in  beautiful  order,  with  eyes  front,  as  though  "at  atten- 
tion !"  Then  Ngalyema  relaxed  his  hold  of  my  coat-tails,  and 
crept  from  behind,  breathing  more  freely ;  and,  lifting  his  hand 
to  his  mouth,  exclaimed,  in  genuine  surprise,  "Eh,  Mamma! 
where  did  all  these  people  come  from  ?" 

"Ah,  Ngalyema,  did  I  not  tell  you  that  thing  was  a  power- 
ful fetish?  Let  me  strike  It  again,  and  show  you  what  elsa 
it  can  do." 

"No  !  no  !  no  !"  he  shrieked.     "I  have  seen  enough !" 

The  day  ended  peacefully.  I  was  invited  to  hasten  on  to 
Stanley  Pool.     The  natives  engaged  themselves  by  the  score 


A  SPECIMEN  OF  CICATRIZATION 


A  SANKURU  WOMAN  PLAYING  NATIVE  DRAUGHTS 


ON    THE    CONGO    RIVER  221 

to  assist  me  in  hauling  the  wagons.  My  progress  was  thence- 
forth steady  and  uninterrupted,  and  in  due  time  the  wagons 
and  good-columns  arrived  at  their  destination. 

Kinshassa  was  an  accident.  Leopoldville,  which  is 
situated  about  ten  miles  away  and  the  capital  of  the 
Congo-Kasai  Province,  was  expected  to  becoime  the 
center  of  white  life  and  enterprise  in  this  vicinity.  It 
was  founded  by  Stanley  in  the  early  eighties  and  named 
in  honour  of  the  Belgian  king.  It  commands  the  river, 
cataracts,  forests  and  mountains. 

Commerce,  however,  fixed  Kinshassa  as  its  base  of 
operation,  and  its  expansion  has  been  astonishing  for 
that  part  of  the  world.  It  is  a  bustling  port  and  you  can 
usually  see  half  a  dozen  steamers  tied  up  at  the  bank. 
There  is  a  population  of  several  hundred  white  people 
and  many  thousands  of  natives.  The  Banque  du  Congo 
Beige  has  its  principal  establishment  here  and  there  are 
scores  of  well-stocked  mercantile  establishments.  With 
the  exception  of  Matadi  and  Thysville  it  has  the  one 
livable  hotel  in  the  Congo.  Moreover,  it  rejoices  in  that 
now  indispensable  feature  of  civic  life  which  is  expressed 
in  a  cinema  theatre.  In  the  tropics  all  motion  picture 
houses  are  open-air  institutions. 

In  cataloguing  Kinshassa's  attractions  I  must  not 
omit  the  feature  that  had  the  strongest  and  most  im- 
mediate lure  for  me.  It  was  a  barber  shop  and  I  made 
tracks  for  it  as  soon  as  I  arrived.  I  was  not  surprised 
to  find  that  the  proprietor  was  a  Portuguese  who  had 
made  a  small  fortune  trimming  the  Samson  locks  of  the 
scores  of  agents  who  stream  into  the  little  town  every 
week.  He  is  the  only  barber  in  the  place  and  there  is 
no  competition  this  side  of  Stanleyville,  more  than  a 
thousand  miles  away. 

The  seasoned  residents  of  the  Congo  would  never 


222  AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

think  of  calling  Kinshassa  by  any  other  name  than 
"Kin."  In  the  same  way  Leopoldville  is  dubbed  "Leo." 
Kinshassa  is  laid  out  in  streets,  has  electric  lights,  and 
within  the  past  twelve  months  about  twenty  automobiles 
have  been  acquired  by  its  residents.  There  is  a  gay 
social  life,  and  on  July  first,  the  anniversary  of  the 
birth  of  the  Congo  Free  State,  and  when  a  celebration 
is  usually  held,  I  saw  a  spirited  football  game  between 
British  and  Begian  teams.  Most  of  the  big  interna- 
tional British  trading  companies  that  operate  in  Africa 
have  branches  in  Kinshassa  and  it  is  not  difficult  to 
assemble  an  English-speaking  quorum. 

In  the  matter  of  transportation  Kinshassa  is  really 
the  key  to  the  heart  of  the  Congo.  It  is  the  rail-head 
of  the  narrow-gauge  line  from  Matadi  and  all  merchan- 
dise that  comes  from  Europe  is  transshipped  at  this 
point  to  the  boats  that  go  up  the  Congo  river  as  far  as 
Stanleyville.  Thus  every  ton  of  freight  and  every 
traveller  bound  for  the  interior  must  pass  through 
Kinshassa.  When  the  railway  from  the  Katanga  is 
constructed  its  prestige  will  increase. 

Kinshassa  owes  a  part  of  its  development  to  the 
Huileries  du  Congo  Beige.  Its  plant  dominates  the 
river  front.  There  are  a  dozen  huge  tanks  into  which 
the  palm-oil  flows  from  the  barges.  The  fluid  is  then 
run  into  casks  and  sent  down  by  rail  to  Matadi,  whence 
it  goes  in  steamers  to  Europe.  More  than  a  hundred 
white  men  are  in  the  service  of  the  "H.  C.  B."  at  Stanley 
Pool.  They  live  in  standardized  brick  bungalows  in 
their  own  area  which  is  equipped  with  tennis  courts  and 
a  library.  On  all  English  fete  days  the  Union  Jack  is 
hoisted  and  there  is  much  festivity. 

Two  months  had  elapsed  since  I  entered  the  Congo 
and  I  had  travelled  about  two  thousand  miles  within  its 


ON    THE    CONGO    RIVER  228 

borders.  This  journey,  short  as  it  seems  as  distances  go 
these  days,  would  have  taken  Stanley  nearly  two  years 
to  accomplish  in  the  face  of  the  obstacles  that  hampered 
him.  I  had  only  carried  out  part  of  my  plan.  The 
Kasai  was  calling.  The  time  was  now  at  hand  when  I 
would  retrace  my  way  up  the  Congo  River  and  turn  my 
face  towards  the  Little  America  that  nestles  far  up  in 
the  wilds. 


THE  BELGIAN  CONGO 


VI  — AMERICA   IN    THE    CONGO 


GO  UP  the  Kasai  River  to  Djoko  Punda  and 
you  believe,  despite  the  background  of  tropi- 
cal vegetation  and  the  ever-present  naked  sav- 
age, that  for  the  moment  you  are  back  in  the  United 
States.  You  see  American  jitneys  scooting  through 
the  jungle;  you  watch  five-ton  American  tractors  haul- 
ing heavy  loads  along  the  sandy  roads ;  you  hear  Ameri- 
can slang  and  banter  on  all  sides,  and  if  you  are  lucky 
enough  to  be  invited  to  a  meal  you  get  American  hot 
cakes  with  real  American  maple  syrup.  The  air  tingles 
with  Yankee  energy  and  vitality. 

All  this  means  that  you  have  arrived  at  the  outpost 
of  Little  America  in  the  Belgian  Congo  —  the  first 
actual  signboard  of  the  least  known  and  most 
picturesque  piece  of  American  financial  venturing 
abroad.  It  has  helped  to  redeem  a  vast  region  from 
barbarism  and  opened  up  an  area  of  far-reaching 
economic  significance.  At  Djoko  Punda  you  enter  the 
domain  of  the  Forminiere,  the  corporation  founded  by 
a  monarch  and  which  has  a  kingdom  for  a  partner. 
Woven  into  its  story  is  the  romance  of  a  one-time  bare- 
foot Virginia  boy  who  became  the  commercial  associate 
of  a  king. 

What  is  the  Forminiere  and  what  does  it  do?  The 
name  is  a  contraction  of  Societe  Internationale  Fores- 
tiere  &  Miniere  du  Congo.  In  the  Congo,  where  com- 
panies have  long  titles,  it  is  the  fashion  to  reduce  them  to 

225 


226         AN   AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

the  dimensions  of  a  cable  code-word.  Thus  the  high- 
sounding  Compagnie  Industrielle  pour  les  Transporte 
et  Commerce  au  Stanley  Pool  is  mercifully  shaved  to 
"Citas."  This  information,  let  me  say,  is  a  hfe-saver 
for  the  alien  with  a  limited  knowledge  of  French  and 
whose  pronunciation  is  worse. 

Clearly  to  understand  the  scope  and  purpose  of  the 
Forminiere  you  must  know  that  it  is  one  of  the  three 
companies  that  have  helped  to  shape  the  destiny  of  the 
Congo.  I  encountered  the  first  —  the  Union  Miniere 
—  the  moment  I  entered  the  Katanga.  The  second  is 
the  Huileries  du  Congo  Beige,  the  palm-oil  producers 
whose  bailiwick  abuts  upon  the  Congo  and  Kwilu 
Rivers.  Now  we  come  to  the  third  and  the  most  im- 
portant agency,  so  far  as  American  interest  is  affected, 
in  the  Forminiere,  whose  empire  is  the  immense  sec- 
tion watered  by  the  Kasai  River  and  which  extends 
across  the  border  into  Angola.  In  the  Union  Miniere 
you  got  the  initial  hint  of  America's  part  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  Congo.  That  part,  however,  was  entirely 
technical.  With  the  Forminiere  you  have  the  combina- 
tion of  American  capital  and  American  engineering  in 
an  achievement  that  is,  to  say  the  least,  unusual. 

The  moment  I  dipped  into  Congo  business  history  I 
touched  the  Forminiere  for  the  reason  that  it  was  the 
pet  project  of  King  Leopold,  and  the  last  and  favorite 
corporate  child  of  his  economic  statesmanship.  More- 
over, among  the  leading  Belgian  capitalists  interested 
were  men  who  had  been  Stanley's  comrades  and  who 
had  helped  to  blaze  the  path  of  civilization  through  the 
wilds.  King  Albert  spoke  of  it  to  me  in  terms  of  ap- 
preciation and  more  especially  of  the  American  end. 
I  felt  a  sense  of  pride  in  the  financial  courage  and 
physical  hardihood  of  my  countrymen  who  had  gone  so 


AMERICA   IN    THE    CONGO  227 

far  afield.  I  determined  to  see  the  undertaking  at  first 
hand. 

My  experience  with  it  proved  to  be  the  most  exciting 
of  my  whole  African  adventure.  All  that  I  had 
hitherto  undergone  was  like  a  springtime  frolic  com- 
pared to  the  journey  up  the  Kasai  and  through  the 
jungle  that  lurks  beyond.  I  saw  the  war-like  savage 
on  his  native  heath;  I  travelled  with  my  own  caravan 
through  the  forest  primeval;  I  employed  every  con- 
ceivable kind  of  transport  from  the  hammock  swung 
on  a  pole  and  carried  on  the  shoulders  of  husky  natives, 
to  the  automobile.  The  primitive  and  modem  met  at 
almost  every  stage  of  the  trip  which  proved  to  be  first 
cousin  to  a  thriller  from  beginning  to  end.  Heretofore 
I  had  been  under  the  spell  of  the  Congo  River.  Now  I 
was  to  catch  the  magic  of  its  largest  tributary,  the  Kasai. 

Long  before  the  Forminiere  broke  out  its  banner, 
America  had  been  associated  with  the  Congo.  It  is  not 
generally  known  that  Henry  M.  Stanley,  who  was  born 
John  Rowlands,  achieved  all  the  feats  which  made  him 
an  international  figure  under  the  name  of  his  American 
benefactor  who  adopted  him  in  New  Orleans  after  he 
had  run  away  to  sea  from  a  Welsh  workhouse.  He  was 
for  years  to  all  intents  and  purposes  an  American,  and 
carried  the  American  flag  on  two  of  his  famous  expe- 
ditions. 

President  Cleveland  was  the  first  chief  dignitary  of 
a  nation  to  recognize  the  Congo  Free  State  in  the 
eighties,  and  his  name  is  perpetuated  in  Mount  Cleve- 
land, near  the  headwaters  of  the  Congo  River.  An 
American  Minister  to  Belgium,  General  H.  S.  Sanford, 
had  a  conspicuous  part  in  all  the  first  International 
African  Associations  formed  by  King  Leopold  to  study 
the  Congo  situation.    This  contact,  however,  save  Stan- 


228         AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

ley's  share,  was  diplomatic  and  a  passing  phase.  It 
was  the  prelude  to  the  constructive  and  permanent  part 
played  by  the  American  capitalists  in  the  Forminiere, 
chief  of  whom  is  Thomas  F.  Ryan. 

The  reading  world  associates  Ryan  with  the  whirlpool 
of  Big  Finance.  He  ruled  New  York  traction  and  he 
recast  the  tobacco  world.  Yet  nothing  appealed  to  his 
imagination  and  enthusiasm  like  the  Congo.  He  saw 
it  in  very  much  the  same  way  that  Rhodes  viewed 
Rhodesia.  Every  great  American  master  of  capital  has 
had  his  particular  pet.  There  is  always  some  darling  of 
the  financial  gods.  The  late  J.  P.  Morgan,  for  example, 
regarded  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation  as  his 
prize  performance  and  talked  about  it  just  like  a  doting 
father  speaks  of  a  successful  son.  The  Union  Pacific 
System  was  the  apple  of  E.  H.  Harriman's  eye,  and 
the  New  York  Central  was  a  Vanderbilt  fetish  for 
decades.  So  with  Ryan  and  the  Congo.  Other  power- 
ful Americans  have  become  associated  with  him,  as  you 
will  see  later  on,  but  it  was  the  tall,  alert,  clear-eyed 
Virginian,  who  rose  from  penniless  clerk  to  be  a  Wall 
Street  king,  who  first  had  the  vision  on  this  side  of  the 
Atlantic,  and  backed  it  with  his  millions.  I  am  certain 
that  if  Ryan  had  gone  into  the  Congo  earlier  and  had 
not  been  engrossed  in  his  American  interests,  he  would 
probably  have  done  for  the  whole  of  Central  Africa 
what  Rhodes  did  for  South  Africa. 

We  can  now  get  at  the  beginnings  of  the  Forminiere. 
Most  large  corporations  radiate  from  a  lawyer's  office. 
With  the  Forminiere  it  was  otherwise.  The  center  of 
inspiration  was  the  stone  palace  at  Brussels  where  King 
Leopold  II,  King  of  the  Belgians,  held  forth.  The  year 
1906  was  not  a  particularly  happy  one  for  him.  The 
atrocity  campaign  was  at  its  height  abroad  and  the 


THOMAS  F.  RYAN 


AMERICA   IN    THE    CONGO  229 

Socialists  were  pounding  him  at  home.  Despite  the 
storm  of  controversy  that  raged  about  him  one  clear 
idea  shone  amid  the  encircling  gloom.  That  idea  was 
to  bulwark  the  Congo  Free  State,  of  which  he  was  also 
sovereign,  before  it  was  ceded  to  Belgium. 

Between  1879  and  1890  Leopold  personally  sup- 
ported the  cost  of  creating  and  maintaining  the  Free 
State.  It  represented  an  outlay  of  more  than  $2,500,- 
000.  Afterwards  he  had  adequate  return  in  the  revenues 
from  rubber  and  ivory.  But  Leopold  was  a  royal 
spender  in  the  fullest  sense.  He  had  a  variety  of  fads 
that  ranged  from  youthful  and  beguiling  femininity  to 
the  building  of  palaces  and  the  beautifying  of  his  own 
country.  He  lavished  millions  on  making  Brussels  a 
sumptuous  capital  and  Ostend  an  elaborate  seaside  re- 
sort. With  his  private  life  we  are  not  concerned. 
Leopold  the  pleasure-seeker  was  one  person;  Leopold 
the  business  man  was  another,  and  as  such  he  was  unique 
among  the  rulers  of  Europe. 

Leopold  contradicted  every  known  tradition  of 
royalty.  The  king  business  is  usually  the  business  of 
spending  unearned  money.  Your  royal  spendthrift  is 
a  much  more  familiar  figure  than  the  royal  miser.  More- 
over, nobody  ever  associates  productive  power  with  a 
king  save  in  the  big  family  line.  His  task  is  inherited 
and  with  it  a  bank  account  sufficient  to  meet  all  needs. 
This  immunity  from  economic  necessity  is  a  large  price 
to  pay  for  lack  of  liberty  in  speech  and  action.  The 
principal  job  of  most  kings,  as  we  all  know,  is  to  be 
a  noble  and  acquiescent  figure-head,  to  pin  decorations 
on  worthy  persons,  and  to  open  public  exhibitions. 

Leopold  did  all  of  these  things  but  they  were  inci- 
dental to  his  larger  task.  He  was  an  insurgent  from 
childhood.    He  violated  all  the  rules  of  the  royal  game 


280         AN   AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

not  only  by  having  a  vision  and  a  mind  all  his  own  but 
in  possessing  a  keen  commercial  instinct.  Geography 
was  his  hobby  at  school.  Like  Rhodes,  he  was  forever 
looking  at  maps.  When  he  became  king  he  saw  that  the 
hope  of  Belgium  economically  lay  in  colonization.  In 
1860  he  made  a  journey  to  the  Far  East,  whence  he 
returned  deeply  impressed  with  trade  opportunities  in 
China.  Afterwards  he  was  the  prime  mover  in  the 
construction  of  the  Pekin-Hankow  Railway.  I  do  not 
think  most  persons  know  that  Leopold  at  one  time  tried 
to  establish  a  Belgian  colony  in  Ethiopia.  Another  act 
in  his  life  that  has  escaped  the  casual  biographer  was 
his  effort  to  purchase  the  Philippines  from  Spain.  Now 
you  can  see  why  he  seized  upon  the  Congo  as  a  colo- 
nizing possibility  the  moment  he  read  Henry  M.  Stan- 
ley's first  article  about  it  in  the  London  Telegraph. 

There  was  a  vital  reason  why  Belgium  should  have  a 
big  and  prosperous  colony.  Her  extraordinary  in- 
ternal development  demanded  an  outlet  abroad.  The 
doughty  little  country  so  aptly  called  "The  Cockpit  of 
Europe,"  and  which  bore  the  bnmt  of  the  first  German 
advance  in  the  Great  War,  is  the  most  densely  popu- 
lated in  the  world.  It  has  two  hundred  and  forty-seven 
inhabitants  for  each  square  kilometer.  England  only 
counts  one  hundred  and  forty-six,  Germany  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty-five,  France  seventy-two,  and  the 
United  States  thirteen.  The  Belgians  had  to  have 
economic  elbow  room  and  Leopold  was  determined  that 
they  should  have  it. 

His  creation  of  the  Congo  Free  State  was  just  one 
evidence  of  his  shrewdness  and  diplomacy.  Half  a 
dozen  of  the  great  powers  had  their  eye  on  this  im- 
touched  garden  spot  in  Central  Africa  and  would  have 
risked  millions  of  dollars  and  thousands  of  men  to  grab 


AMERICA   IN    THE    CONGO  231 

it.  Leopold,  through  a  series  of  International  Associa- 
tions, engineered  the  famous  Berlin  Congress  of  1884 
and  with  Bismarck's  help  put  the  Free  State  on  the 
map,  with  himself  as  steward.  It  was  only  a  year  ago 
in  Germany  that  a  former  high-placed  German  states- 
man admitted  to  me  that  one  of  the  few  fundamental 
mistakes  that  the  Iron  Chancellor  ever  made  was  to 
permit  Leopold  to  snatch  the  Congo  from  under  the 
very  eyes  and  hands  of  Germany.  I  quote  this  episode 
to  show  that  when  it  came  to  business  Leopold  made 
every  king  in  Europe  look  like  an  office  boy.  Even  so 
masterful  a  manipulator  of  men  as  Cecil  Rhodes  failed 
with  him.  Rhodes  sought  his  aid  in  his  trans-African 
telegraph  scheme  but  Leopold  was  too  shrewd  for  him. 
After  his  first  audience  with  the  Belgian  king  Rhodes 
said  to  Robert  Williams,  "I  thought  I  was  clever  but 
I  was  no  match  for  him." 

The  only  other  modern  king  interested  in  business 
was  the  former  Kaiser,  Mr.  Wilhelm  Hohenzollern. 
Although  he  has  no  business  sense  in  the  way  that 
Leopold  had  it,  he  always  had  a  keen  appreciation  of 
big  business  as  an  imperial  prop.  Like  Leopold,  he 
had  a  congested  country  and  realized  that  permanent 
expansion  lay  in  colonization.  The  commercial  mag- 
nates of  Germany  used  him  for  their  own  ends  but 
their  teamwork  advanced  the  whole  empire.  Wilhelm 
was  a  silent  partner  in  the  potash,  shipping,  and  elec- 
tric-machinery trusts.  He  earned  whatever  he  re- 
ceived because  he  was  in  every  sense  an  exalted  press- 
agent, -r- a  sort  of  glorified  publicity  promoter.  His 
strong  point  was  to  go  about  proclaiming  the  merits 
of  German  wares  and  he  always  made  it  a  point  to 
scatter  samples.  On  a  visit  to  Italy  he  left  behind  a 
considerable  quantity  of  soap.    There  was  a  great  rush 


282          AN    AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

to  get  these  royal  left-overs.  Two  weeks  later  a  small 
army  of  German  soap  salesmen  descended  upon  the 
country  selling  this  identical  product. 

Whatever  may  be  said  of  Leopold,  one  thing  is  cer- 
tain. He  was  not  small.  Wilhelm  used  the  brains  of 
other  men ;  Leopold  employed  his  own,  and  every  capi- 
talist who  went  up  against  him  paid  tribute  to  this 
asset. 

We  can  now  go  back  to  1906,  the  year  that  was  to 
mark  the  advent  of  America  into  the  Congo.  Leopold 
knew  that  the  days  of  the  Congo  as  a  Free  State  were 
numbered.  His  personally-conducted  stewardship  of 
the  Colony  was  being  assailed  by  the  Socialists  on  one 
hand  and  the  atrocity  proclaimers  on  the  other. 
Leopold  was  undoubtedly  sincere  in  his  desire  to  eco- 
nomically safeguard  the  African  possession  before  it 
passed  out  of  his  control.  In  any  event,  during  the 
summer  of  that  year  he  sent  a  message  to  Ryan  asking 
him  to  confer  with  him  at  Brussels.  The  summons 
came  out  of  a  clear  sky  and  at  first  the  American  finan- 
cier paid  no  attention  to  it.  He  was  then  on  a  holiday 
in  Switzerland.  When  a  second  invitation  came  from 
the  king,  he  accepted,  and  in  September  there  began  a 
series  of  meetings  between  the  two  men  which  resulted 
in  the  organization  of  the  Forminiere  and  with  it  the 
dawn  of  a  real  international  epoch  in  American  enter- 
prise. 

In  the  light  of  our  immense  riches  the  timidity  of 
American  capital  in  actual  constructive  enterprise 
overseas  is  astonishing.  Scrutinize  the  world  business 
map  and  you  see  how  shy  it  has  been.  We  own  rubber 
plantations  in  Sumatra,  copper  mines  in  Chile,  gold 
interests  in  Ecuador,  and  have  dabbled  in  Russian  and 
Siberian  mining.     These  undertakings  are  slight,  how- 


AMERICA   IN    THE    CONGO  233 

ever,  compared  with  the  scope  of  the  world  field  and 
our  own  wealth.  Mexico,  where  we  have  extensive 
smelting,  oil,  rubber,  mining  and  agricultural  invest- 
ments, is  so  close  at  hand  that  it  scarcely  seems  like  a 
foreign  coimtry.  Strangely  enough  our  capital  there 
has  suffered  more  than  in  any  other  part  of  the  globe. 
The  spectacle  of  American  pioneering  in  the  Congo 
therefore  takes  on  a  peculiar  significance. 

There  are  two  reasons  why  our  capital  has  not 
wandered  far  afield.  One  is  that  we  have  a  great  coun- 
try with  enormous  resources  and  consequently  almost 
unlimited  opportunities  for  the  employment  of  cash  at 
home.  The  other  lies  in  the  fact  that  American  capital 
abroad  is  not  afforded  the  same  protection  granted  the 
money  of  other  countries.  Take  British  capital.  It  is 
probably  the  most  courageous  of  all.  The  sun  never 
sets  on  it.  England  is  a  small  country  and  her  money, 
to  spread  its  wings,  must  go  elsewhere.  Moreover, 
Britain  zealously  safeguards  her  Nationals  and  their 
investments,  and  we,  I  regret  to  say,  have  not  always 
done  likewise.  The  moment  an  Englishman  or  the 
English  flag  is  insulted  a  warship  speeds  to  the  spot 
and  John  Bull  wants  to  know  the  reason  why. 

Why  did  Leopold  seek  American  capital  and  why 
did  he  pick  out  Thomas  F.  Ryan?  There  are  several 
motives  and  I  will  deal  with  them  in  order.  In  the 
first  place  American  capital  is  about  the  only  non- 
political  money  in  the  world.  The  English  pound,  for 
example,  always  flies  the  Union  Jack  and  is  a  highly 
sensitive  commodity.  When  England  puts  money  into 
an  enterprise  she  immediately  makes  the  Foreign 
Office  an  accessory.  German  overseas  enterprise  is 
even  more  meddlesome.  It  has  always  been  the  first 
aid  to  poisonous  and  pernicious   penetration.     Even 


284         AN    AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

French  capital  is  flavoured  with  imperialism  despite  the 
fact  that  it  is  the  product  of  a  democracy.  Our  dollars 
are  not  hitched  to  the  star  of  empire.  We  have  no 
dreams  of  world  conquest.  It  is  the  safest  politically  to 
deal  with,  and  Leopold  recognized  this  fact. 

In  the  second  place  he  did  not  want  anything  to  inter- 
fere with  his  Congo  rubber  industry.  Now  we  get  to 
the  real  reason,  perhaps,  why  he  sent  for  Ryan.  In 
conjunction  with  the  late  Senator  Nelson  W.  Aldrich, 
Ryan  had  developed  the  rubber  industry  in  Mexico,  by 
extracting  rubber  from  the  guayele  shrub  which  grows 
wild  in  the  desert.  Leopold  knew  this  —  he  had  a  way 
of  finding  out  about  things  —  and  he  sought  to  kill 
two  birds  with  one  stone.  He  wanted  this  Mexican 
process  and  at  the  same  time  he  needed  capital  for  the 
Congo.  In  any  event,  Ryan  went  to  see  him  and  the 
Forminiere  was  born. 

There  is  no  need  of  rehearsing  here  the  concrete  de- 
tails of  this  enterprise.  All  we  want  are  the  essential 
facts.  Leopold  realized  that  the  Forminiere  was  the  last 
business  venture  of  his  life  and  he  projected  it  on  a 
truly  kingly  scale.  It  was  the  final  chance  for  huge 
grants  and  the  result  was  that  the  Forminiere  received 
the  mining  and  mineral  rights  to  more  than  7,000,000 
acres,  and  other  concessions  for  agriculture  aggregating 
2,500,000  acres  in  addition. 

The  original  capital  was  only  3,000,000  francs  but 
this  has  been  increased  from  time  to  time  until  it  is  now 
more  than  10,000,000  francs.  The  striking  feature  of 
the  organization  was  the  provision  inserted  by  Leopold 
that  made  Belgium  a  partner.  One-half  of  the  shares 
were  assigned  to  the  Crown.  The  other  half  was  divided 
into  two  parts.  One  of  these  parts  was  subscribed  by 
the  King  and  the  Societe  Generale  of  Belgium,  and  the 


AMERICA   IN    THE    CONGO  235 

other  was  taken  in  its  entirety  by  Ryan.  Subsequently 
Ryan  took  in  as  associates  Daniel  Guggenheim,  Senator 
Aldrich,  Harry  Payne  Whitney  and  John  Hays  Ham- 
mond. When  Leopold  died  his  share  went  to  his  heirs. 
Upon  the  death  of  Aldrich  his  interest  was  acquired  by 
Ryan,  who  is  the  principal  American  owner.  No  shares 
have  ever  been  sold  and  none  will  be.  The  original  trust 
certificate  issued  to  Ryan  and  Guggenheim  remains 
intact.  The  company  therefore  remains  a  close  corpora- 
tion in  every  respect  and  as  such  is  unique  among 
kindred  enterprises. 


II 

AT  THIS  point  the  question  naturally  arises 
—  what  is  the  Societe  Generale?  To  ask  it 
in  Belgium  would  be  on  a  par  with  inquiring 
the  name  of  the  king.  Its  bank  notes  are  in  circulation 
everywhere  and  it  is  known  to  the  humblest  peasant. 

The  Societe  Generale  was  organized  in  1822  and  is 
therefore  one  of  the  oldest,  if  not  the  oldest,  joint  stock 
bank  of  the  Continent.  The  general  plan  of  the  famous 
Deutsche  Bank  of  Berlin,  which  planted  the  German 
commercial  flag  everywhere,  and  which  provided  a  large 
part  of  the  bone  and  sinew  of  the  Teutonic  world-wide 
exploitation  campaign,  was  based  upon  it.  With  finance 
as  with  merchandising,  the  German  is  a  prize  imitator. 
The  Societe  Generale,  however,  is  much  more  than  a 
bank.  It  is  the  dynamo  that  drives  Belgian  enterprise 
throughout  the  globe.  We  in  America  pride  ourselves 
on  the  fact  that  huge  combinations  of  capital  geared  up 
to  industry  are  a  specialty  entirely  our  own.  We  are 
much  mistaken.  Little  Belgium  has  in  the  Societe  an 
agency  for  development  unique  among  financial  insti- 
tutions. Its  imposing  marble  palace  on  the  Rue  Royale 
is  the  nerve  center  of  a  corporate  life  that  has  no  geo- 
graphical lines.  With  a  capital  of  62,000,000  francs 
it  has  piled  up  reserves  of  more  than  400,000,000  francs. 
In  addition  to  branches  called  "filial  banks"  throughout 
Belgium,  it  also  controls  the  powerful  "Banque  pour 
I'Etranger,"  which  is  established  in  London,  Paris,  New 
York,  Cairo,  and  the  Far  East. 

One  distinctive  feature  of  the  Societe  Generale  is  its 

286 


JEAN  JADOT 


AMERICA   IN    THE    CONGO  237 

close  alliance  with  the  Government.  It  is  a  sort  of 
semi-official  National  Treasury  and  performs  for  Bel- 
gium many  of  the  functions  that  the  Bank  of  England 
transacts  for  the  United  Kingdom.  But  it  has  infinitely 
more  vigour  and  push  than  the  Old  Lady  of  Thread- 
needle  Street  in  London.  Its  leading  officials  are  re- 
quired to  appear  on  all  imposing  public  occasions  such 
as  coronations  and  the  opening  of  Parliament.  The 
Belgian  Government  applies  to  the  Societe  Generale 
whenever  any  national  financial  enterprise  is  to  be 
inaugurated  and  counts  upon  it  to  take  the  initial  steps. 
Thus  it  became  the  backbone  of  Leopold's  ramified  proj- 
ects and  it  was  natural  that  he  should  invoke  its  assist- 
ance in  the  organization  of  the  Forminiere. 

Long  before  the  Forminiere  came  into  being,  the 
Societe  Generale  was  the  chief  financial  factor  in  the 
Congo.  With  the  exception  of  the  Huileries  du  Congo 
Beige,  which  is  British,  it  either  dominates  or  has  large 
holdings  in  every  one  of  the  sixteen  major  corporations 
doing  business  in  the  Colony  and  whose  combined  total 
capitalization  is  more  than  200,000,000  francs.  This 
means  that  it  controls  railways  and  river  transport,  and 
the  cotton,  gold,  rubber,  ivory  and  diamond  output. 

The  custodians  of  this  far-flung  financial  power  are 
the  money  kings  of  Belgium.  Chief  among  them  is 
Jean  Jadot,  Governor  of  the  Societe  Generale  —  the 
institution  still  designates  its  head  by  this  ancient  title 
—  and  President  of  the  Forminiere.  In  him  and  his 
colleagues  you  find  those  elements  of  self-made  success 
so  dear  to  the  heart  of  the  human  interest  historian.  It 
would  be  difficult  to  find  anywhere  a  more  picturesque 
group  of  men  than  those  who,  through  their  association 
with  King  Leopold  and  the  Societe,  have  developed  the 
Congo  and  so  many  other  enterprises. 


288         AN   AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

Jadot  occupies  today  the  same  position  in  Belgium 
that  the  late  J.  P.  Morgan  held  in  his  prime  in  America. 
He  is  the  foremost  capitalist.  Across  the  broad,  flat- 
topped  desk  of  his  office  in  that  marble  palace  in  the 
Rue  Royale  the  tides  of  Belgian  finance  ebb  and  flow. 
Just  as  Morgan's  name  made  an  underwriting  in  New 
York  so  does  Jadot's  put  the  stamp  of  authority  on  it 
in  Brussels.  Morgan  inherited  a  great  name  and  a  for- 
tune.   Jadot  made  his  name  and  his  millions. 

When  you  analyze  the  lives  of  American  multi-mil- 
lionaires you  find  a  curious  repetition  of  history.  Men 
like  John  D.  Rockefeller,  Henry  H.  Rogers,  Thomas  F. 
Ryan,  and  Russell  Sage  began  as  grocery  clerks  in  small 
towns.  Something  in  the  atmosphere  created  by  spice 
and  sugar  must  have  developed  the  money-making  germ. 
With  the  plutocrats  of  Belgium  it  was  different.  Prac- 
tically all  of  them,  and  especially  those  who  ruled  the 
financial  institutions,  began  as  explorers  or  engineers. 
This  shows  the  intimate  connection  that  exists  between 
Belgium  and  her  overseas  interests. 

Jadot  is  a  good  illustration.  At  twenty  he  graduated 
as  engineer  from  Louvain  University.  At  thirty-five  he 
had  directed  the  construction  of  the  tramways  of  Cairo 
and  of  the  Lower  Egyptian  Railways.  He  was  now 
caught  up  in  Leopold's  great  dream  of  Belgian  expan- 
sion. The  moment  that  the  king  obtained  the  conces- 
sion for  constructing  the  1,200  mile  railway  from  Pekin 
to  Hankow  he  sent  Jadot  to  China  to  take  charge. 
Within  eight  years  he  completed  this  task  in  the  face 
of  almost  insuperable  difficulties,  including  a  Boxer  up- 
rising, which  cost  the  lives  of  some  of  his  colleagues  and 
tested  his  every  resource. 

In  1905  he  entered  the  Societe  Generale.  At  once  he 
became  fired  with  Leopold's  enthusiasm  for  the  Congo 


AMERICA   IN    THE    CONGO  239 

and  the  necessity  for  making  it  an  outlet  for  Belgium. 
Jadot  was  instrumental  in  organizing  the  Union 
Miniere  and  was  also  the  compelling  force  behind  the 
building  of  the  Katanga  Railway.  In  1912  he  became 
Vice  Governor  of  the  Societe  and  the  following  year 
assumed  the  Governorship.  In  addition  to  being  Presi- 
dent of  the  Forminiere  he  is  also  head  of  the  Union 
Miniere  and  of  the  new  railroad  which  is  to  connect  the 
Katanga  with  the  Lower  Congo. 

When  you  meet  Jadot  you  are  face  to  face  with  a 
human  organization  tingling  with  nervous  vitality.  He 
reminds  me  more  of  E.  H.  Harriman  than  of  any 
other  American  empire  builder  that  I  have  met,  and 
like  Harriman  he  seems  to  be  incessantly  bound  up  to 
the  telephone.  He  is  keen,  quick,  and  forceful  and 
talks  as  rapidly  as  he  thinks.  Almost  slight  of  body, 
he  at  first  gives  the  impression  of  being  a  student  for 
his  eyes  are  deep  and  thoughtful.  There  is  nothing 
meditative  in  his  manner,  however,  for  he  is  a  live 
wire  in  the  fullest  American  sense.  Every  time  I  talked 
with  him  I  went  away  with  a  new  wonder  at  his  stock  of 
world  information.  Men  of  the  Jadot  type  never  climb 
to  the  heights  they  attain  without  a  reason.  In  his  case 
it  is  first  and  foremost  an  accurate  knowledge  of  every 
imdertaking.  He  never  goes  into  a  project  without 
first  knowing  all  about  it  —  a  helpful  rule,  by  the  way, 
that  the  average  person  may  well  observe  in  the  em- 
ployment of  his  money. 

If  Jadot  is  a  live  wire,  then  his  confrere,  Emile  Franc- 
qui,  is  a  whole  battery.  Here  you  touch  the  most  ro- 
mantic and  many-sided  career  in  all  Belgian  financial 
history.  It  reads  like  a  melodrama  and  is  packed  with 
action  and  adventure.  I  could  almost  write  a  book 
about  any  one  of  its  many  stirring  phases. 


240         AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

At  fourteen  Francqui  was  a  penniless  orphan.  He 
worked  his  way  through  a  regimental  school  and  at 
twenty  was  commissioned  a  sub-lieutenant.  It  was  1885 
and  the  Congo  Free  State  had  just  been  launched. 
Having  studied  engineering  he  was  sent  out  at  once  to 
Boma  to  join  the  Topographic  Brigade.  During  this 
first  stay  in  the  Congo  he  was  in  charge  of  a  boat-load  of 
workmen  engaged  in  wharf  construction.  The  captain 
of  a  British  gunboat  hailed  him  and  demanded  that  he 
stop.    Francqui  replied, 

"If  you  try  to  stop  me  I  will  lash  my  boat  to  yours 
and  destroy  it  with  dynamite."  He  had  no  further 
trouble. 

After  three  years  service  in  the  Congo  he  returned 
to  Brussels  and  became  the  military  instructor  of  Prince 
Albert,  now  King  of  the  Belgians.  The  African  fever 
was  in  his  veins.  He  heard  that  a  mission  was  about 
to  depart  for  Zanzibar  and  East  Africa.  A  knowledge 
of  English  was  a  necessary  part  of  the  equipment  of  the 
chief  officer.  Francqui  wanted  this  job  but  he  did  not 
know  a  syllable  of  English.  He  went  to  a  friend  and 
confided  his  ambition. 

"Are  you  willing  to  take  a  chance  with  one  word?" 
asked  his  colleague. 

"I  am,"  answered  the  young  officer. 

He  thereupon  acquired  the  word  "yes,"  his  friend's 
injunction  being,  "If  you  say  'yes'  to  every  question 
you  can  probably  carry  it  off." 

Francqui  thereupon  went  to  the  Foreign  Office  and 
was  immediately  asked  in  English: 

"Can  you  speak  English?" 

"Yes,"  was  his  immediate  retort. 

"Are  you  willing  to  undertake  the  hazards  of  this 
journey  to  Zanzibar?"  queried  the  interrogator. 


AMERICA   IN    THE    CONGO  241 

"Yes,"  came  the  reply. 

Luck  was  with  Francqui  for,  as  his  good  angel  had 
prophesied,  his  one  word  of  English  met  every  require- 
ment and  he  got  the  assignment.  Since  that  time,  I 
might  add,  he  has  acquired  a  fluent  command  of  the 
English  language.  Francqui  has  always  been  willing  to 
take  a  chance  and  lead  a  forlorn  hope. 

It  was  in  the  early  nineties  that  his  exploits  made  his 
name  one  of  the  greatest  in  African  conquest  and  ex- 
ploration. He  went  out  to  the  Congo  as  second  in  com- 
mand of  what  was  known  as  the  Bia  Expedition,  sent 
to  explore  the  Katanga  and  adjacent  territory.  After 
two  hard  years  of  incessant  campaigning  the  expedition 
fell  into  hard  lines.  Captain  Bia  succumbed  to  small- 
pox and  the  column  encountered  every  conceivable  hard- 
ship. Men  died  by  the  score  and  there  was  no  food. 
Francqui  took  charge,  and  by  his  indomitable  will  held 
the  force  together,  starving  and  suffering  with  his  men. 
During  this  experience  he  travelled  more  than  5,000 
miles  on  foot  and  through  a  region  where  no  other  white 
man  had  ever  gone  before.  He  explored  the  Luapula, 
the  headwaters  of  the  Congo,  and  opened  up  a  new  world 
to  civilization.  No  other  single  Congo  expedition  save 
that  of  Stanley  made  such  an  important  contribution  to 
the  history  of  the  Colony. 

Most  men  would  have  been  satisfied  to  rest  with  this 
achievement.  With  Francqui  it  simply  marked  a  mile- 
post  in  his  life.  In  1896,  when  he  resigned  from  the 
army,  Leopold  had  fixed  his  eyes  on  China  as  a  scene 
of  operations,  and  he  sent  Francqui  there  to  clinch  the 
Pekin-Hankow  concession,  which  he  did.  In  the  course 
of  these  negotiations  he  met  Jadot,  who  was  later  to  be- 
come his  associate  both  in  the  Societe  Generale  and  in 
the  Forminere. 


242         AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

In  1901  Francqui  again  went  to  China,  this  time  as 
agent  of  the  Compagnie  d'Orient,  which  coveted  the 
coal  mines  of  Kaiping  that  were  supposed  to  be  among 
the  richest  in  the  world.  The  British  and  Germans  also 
desired  this  valuable  property  which  had  been  operated 
for  some  years  by  a  Chinese  company.  As  usual, 
Francqui  got  what  he  went  after  and  took  possession  of 
the  property.  The  crude  Chinese  method  of  mining  had 
greatly  impaired  the  workings  and  they  had  to  be  en- 
tirely reconstructed.  Among  the  engineers  employed 
was  an  alert,  smooth-faced,  keen-minded  young  Ameri- 
can named  Herbert  Hoover. 

Upon  his  return  to  Brussels  Francqui  allied  himself 
with  Colonel  Thys,  who  was  head  of  the  Banque  d'Out- 
remer,  the  rival  of  the  Societe  Generale.  After  he  had 
mastered  the  intricacies  of  banking  he  became  a  director 
of  the  Societe  and  with  Jadot  forged  to  the  front  in 
finance.  If  Jadot  stood  as  the  Morgan,  then  Francqui 
became  the  Stillman  of  the  Belgian  money  world. 

Then  came  the  Great  War  and  the  German  avalanche 
which  overwhelmed  Belgium.  Her  banks  were  con- 
verted into  hospitals;  her  industry  lay  prostrate;  her 
people  faced  starvation.  Some  vital  agency  was  neces- 
sary to  centralize  relief  at  home  in  the  same  way  that 
the  Commission  for  Relief  in  Belgium,  —  the  famous 
"C.  R.  B."  —  crystallized  it  abroad. 

The  Comite  Nationale  was  formed  by  Belgians  to 
feed  and  clothe  the  native  population  and  it  became  the 
disbursing  agent  for  the  "C.  R.  B."  Francqui  was 
chosen  head  of  this  body  and  directed  it  until  the 
armistice.  It  took  toll  of  all  his  energy,  diplomacy 
and  instinct  for  organization.  Needless  to  say  it  was 
one  of  the  most  difficult  of  all  relief  missions  in  the  war. 
Francqui  was  a  loyal  Belgian  and  he  was  surrounded 


EMILE  FRANCQUI 


AMERICA    IN    THE    CONGO  243 

by  the  suspicious  and  domineering  German  conquerors. 
Yet  they  trusted  him,  and  his  word  in  Belgium  for  more 
than  four  years  was  absolute  law.  He  was,  in  truth, 
a  benevolent  dictator. 

His  war  life  illustrates  one  of  the  quaint  pranks  that 
fate  often  plays.  As  soon  as  the  "C.  R.  B."  was 
organized  in  London  Francqui  hastened  over  to  Eng- 
land to  confer  with  the  American  organizers.  To  his 
surprise  and  delight  he  encountered  in  its  master  spirit 
and  chairman,  the  smooth-faced  young  engineer  whom 
he  had  met  out  in  the  Kaiping  coal  mines  before.  It 
was  the  first  time  that  he  and  Hoover  had  seen  each 
other  since  their  encounter  in  China.  They  now  worked 
shoulder  to  shoulder  in  the  monster  mercy  of  all  history. 

Francqui  is  blunt,  silent,  aggressive.  When  Belgium 
wants  something  done  she  instinctively  turns  to  him. 
In  1920,  after  the  delay  in  fixing  the  German  repara- 
tion embarrassed  the  country,  and  liquid  cash  was  im- 
perative, he  left  Brussels  on  three  days'  notice  and 
within  a  fortnight  from  the  time  he  reached  New  York 
had  negotiated  a  fifty-million-dollar  loan.  He  is  as 
potent  in  official  life  as  in  finance  for  as  Special  Min- 
ister of  State  without  portfolio  he  is  a  real  power  be- 
hind a  real  throne. 

Although  Francqui  is  a  director  in  the  Societe  Gen- 
erale,  he  is  also  what  we  would  call  Chairman  of  the 
Board  of  Banqe  d'Outremer.  This  shows  that  the  well- 
known  institution  of  "community  of  interests"  is  not 
confined  to  the  United  States.  With  Jadot  he  repre- 
sents the  Societe  in  the  Forminiere  Board.  I  have  used 
these  two  men  to  illustrate  the  type  represented  by  the 
Belgian  financial  kings.  I  could  mention  various  others. 
They  include  Alexander  Delcommune,  famous  as  Congo 
fighter  and  explorer,  who  is  one  of  the  leading  figures  of 


244         AN   AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

the  Banque  d'Outremer;  Edmond  Solvay,  the  indus- 
trial magnate,  and  Edward  Bunge,  the  Antwerp  mer- 
chant prince.  Ahnost  without  exception  they  and  their 
colleagues  have  either  lived  in  the  Congo,  or  have  been 
guided  in  their  fortunes  by  it. 

You  have  now  had  the  historical  approach  with  all 
personal  side-lights  to  the  hour  when  America  actually 
invaded  the  Congo.  As  soon  as  Leopold  and  Ryan 
finally  got  together  the  king  said,  "The  Congo  must 
have  American  engineers.  They  are  the  best  in  the 
world."  Thus  it  came  about  that  Central  Africa,  like 
South  Africa,  came  under  the  galvanizing  hand  of  the 
Yankee  technical  expert.  At  Kimberley  and  Johannes- 
burg, however,  the  task  was  comparatively  easy.  The 
mines  were  accessible  and  the  country  was  known.  With 
Central  Africa  it  was  a  different  and  more  dangerous 
matter.  The  land  was  wild,  hostile  natives  abounded 
on  all  sides,  and  going  in  was  like  firing  a  shot  in  the 
dark. 

The  American  invasion  was  in  two  sections.  One 
was  the  group  of  engineers  headed  by  Sydney  H.  Ball 
and  R.  D.  L.  Mohun,  known  as  the  Ball-Mohun  Expe- 
dition, which  conducted  the  geological  investigation.  The 
other  was  in  charge  of  S.  P.  Vemer,  an  American  who 
had  done  considerable  pioneering  in  the  Congo,  and  de- 
voted itself  entirely  to  rubber.  The  latter  venture  was 
under  the  auspices  of  the  American  Congo  Company, 
which  expected  to  employ  the  Mexican  process  in  the 
Congo.  After  several  years  the  attempt  was  abandoned 
although  the  company  still  exists. 

I  will  briefly  narrate  its  experience  to  show  that  the 
product  which  raised  the  tempest  around  King  Leo- 
pold's head  and  which  for  years  was  synonymous  with 
the  name  of  the  Congo,  has  practically  ceased  to  be  an 


AMERICA    IN    THE    CONGO  245 

important  commercial  commodity  in  the  Colony.  The 
reason  is  obvious.  In  Leopold's  day  nine-tenths  of 
the  world's  supply  of  rubber  was  wild  and  came  from 
Brazil  and  the  Congo.  It  cost  about  fifty  cents  a  pound 
to  gather  and  sold  for  a  dollar.  Today  more  than  ninety 
per  cent  of  the  rubber  supply  is  grown  on  plantations 
in  the  Dutch  East  Indies,  the  Malay  States,  and  the 
Straits  Settlements,  where  it  costs  about  twenty  cents 
a  pound  to  gather  and  despite  the  big  slump  in  price 
since  the  war,  is  profitable.  In  the  Congo  there  is  still 
wild  rubber  and  a  movement  is  under  way  to  develop 
large  plantations.  Labor  is  scarce,  however,  while  in 
the  East  millions  of  coolies  are  available.  This  tells  the 
whole  rubber  story. 

The  Ball-Mohun  Expedition  was  more  successful 
than  its  mate  for  it  opened  up  a  mineral  empire  and  laid 
the  foundations  of  the  Little  America  that  you  shall  soon 
see.  Mohun  was  administrative  head  and  Ball  the 
technical  head  and  chief  engineer.  Other  members 
were  Millard  K.  Shaler,  afterwards  one  of  Hoover's 
most  efficient  aids  in  the  relief  of  Belgium,  and  Arthur 
F.  Smith,  geologists;  Roland  B.  Oliver,  topographer; 
A.  E.  H.  and  C.  A.  Reid,  and  N.  Janot,  prospectors. 

Mohun,  who  had  been  engaged  on  account  of  his 
knowledge  of  the  country,  had  been  American  Consul 
at  Zanzibar  and  at  Boma,  and  first  left  diplomacy  to 
fight  the  Arab  slave-traders  in  the  interior.  When 
someone  asked  him  why  he  had  quit  the  United  States 
Government  service  to  go  on  a  military  mission  he  said, 
"I  prefer  killing  Arabs  in  the  interior  to  killing  time 
at  Boma."  He  figured  as  one  of  Richard  Harding 
Davis'  "Soldiers  of  Fortune"  and  was  in  every  sense  a 
unique  personality. 

You  get  some  idea  of  the  hazards  that  confronted  the 


246         AN   AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

American  pioneers  when  I  say  that  when  they  set  forth 
for  the  Kasai  region,  which  is  the  southwestern  part  of 
the  Congo,  late  in  1907,  they  were  accompanied  by  a 
battalion  of  native  troops  under  Belgian  officers.  Often 
they  had  to  fight  their  way  before  they  could  take  speci- 
mens. On  one  occasion  Ball  was  prospecting  in  a  region 
hitherto  uninvaded  by  the  white  man.  He  was  attacked 
by  a  large  body  of  hostile  savages  and  a  pitched  battle 
followed.  In  informal  Congo  history  this  engagement 
is  known  as  "The  Battle  of  Ball's  Run,"  although  Ball 
did  no  running.  As  recently  as  1915  one  of  the  For- 
miniere  prospectors,  E.  G.  Decker,  was  killed  by  the 
fierce  Batshoks,  the  most  belligerent  of  the  Upper  Kasai 
tribes.  The  Ball-Mohun  group,  which  was  the  first  of 
many  expeditions,  remained  in  the  field  more  than  two 
years  and  covered  a  wide  area. 

Up  to  this  time  gold  and  copper  were  the  only  valu- 
able minerals  that  had  been  discovered  in  the  Congo  and 
the  Americans  naturally  went  after  them.  Much  to 
their  surprise,  they  found  diamonds  and  thereby  opened 
up  a  fresh  source  of  wealth  for  the  Colony.  The  first 
diamond  was  found  at  Mai  Munene,  which  means  "Big 
Water,"  a  considerable  waterfall  discovered  by  Living- 
stone. This  region,  which  is  watered  by  the  Kasai  River, 
became  the  center  of  what  is  now  known  as  the  Congo 
Diamond  Fields  and  remains  the  stronghold  of  Ameri- 
can engineering  and  financial  enterprise  in  Central 
Africa.  On  a  wooded  height  not  far  from  the  head- 
waters of  the  Kasai,  these  path-finding  Americans 
established  a  post  called  Tshikapa,  the  name  of  a  small 
river  nearby.  It  is  the  capital  of  Little  America  in  the 
jimgle  and  therefore  became  the  objective  of  the  second 
stage  of  my  Congo  journey. 


A  BELLE  OF  THE  CONGO 


WOMEN  OF  THE  BATETELAS 


Ill 

KINSHASSA  is  nearly  a  thousand  miles  from 
Tshikapa.  To  get  there  I  had  to  retrace  my 
way  up  the  Congo  as  far  as  Kwamouth,  where 
the  Kasai  empties  into  the  parent  stream.  I  also  found 
that  it  was  necessary  to  change  boats  at  Dima  and  con- 
tinue on  the  Kasai  to  Djoko  Punda.  Here  begins  the 
jungle  road  to  the  diamond  fields. 

Up  to  this  time  I  had  enjoyed  the  best  facilities  that 
the  Congo  could  supply  in  the  way  of  transport.  Now 
I  faced  a  trip  that  would  not  only  try  patience  but 
had  every  element  of  the  unknown,  which  in  the  Congo 
means  the  uncomfortable.  Fortunately,  the  "Lusanga," 
one  of  the  Huileries  du  Congo  Beige  steamers,  was 
about  to  start  for  the  Kwilu  River,  which  branches  off 
from  the  Kasai,  and  the  company  was  kind  enough  to 
order  it  to  take  me  to  Dima,  which  was  off  the  prescribed 
itinerary  of  the  vessel. 

On  a  brilliant  morning  at  the  end  of  June  I  set  forth. 
Nelson  was  still  my  faithful  servant  and  his  smile  and 
teeth  shone  as  resplendently  as  ever.  The  only  change 
in  him  was  that  his  appetite  for  chikwanga  had  visibly  in- 
creased. Somebody  had  told  him  at  Kinshassa  that  the 
Kasai  country  teemed  with  cannibals.  Being  one  of 
the  world's  champion  eaters,  he  shrank  from  being 
eaten  himself.  I  promised  him  an  extra  allowance  of 
food  and  a  khaki  uniform  that  I  had  worn  in  the  war, 
and  he  agreed  to  take  a  chance. 

Right  here  let  me  give  an  evidence  of  the  Congo  na- 

247 


248         AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

tive's  astounding  quickness  to  grasp  things.  I  do  not 
refer  to  his  light-fingered  propensities,  however.  When 
we  got  to  Eonshassa  Nelson  knew  scarcely  a  word  of  the 
local  dialect.  When  we  left  a  week  later,  he  could  jab- 
ber intelligently  with  any  savage  he  met.  On  the  four 
weeks'  trip  from  Elizabethville  he  had  picked  up  enough 
French  to  make  himself  understood.  The  Central  Afri- 
can native  has  an  aptitude  for  languages  that  far  sur- 
passes that  of  the  average  white  man. 

I  was  the  only  passenger  on  the  "Lusanga,"  which 
had  been  reconstructed  for  Lord  Leverhulme's  trip 
through  the  Congo  in  1914.  I  occupied  the  suite  in- 
stalled for  him  and  it  was  my  last  taste  of  luxury  for 
many  a  day.  The  captain,  Albert  Carrie,  was  a  retired 
lieutenant  in  the  British  Royal  Navy,  and  the  chief 
engineer  was  a  Scotchman.  The  Congo  River  seemed 
like  an  old  friend  as  we  steamed  up  toward  Kwamouth. 
As  soon  as  we  turned  into  the  Kasai  I  found  that  con- 
ditions were  different  than  on  the  main  river.  There 
was  an  abundance  of  fuel,  both  for  man  and  boat.  The 
daily  goat  steak  of  the  Congo  was  relieved  by  duck  and 
fish.  The  Kasai  region  is  thickly  populated  and  I  saw 
a  new  type  of  native,  lighter  in  colour  than  elsewhere, 
and  more  keen  and  intelligent. 

The  women  of  the  Kasai  are  probably  the  most  at- 
tractive in  the  Congo.  This  applies  particularly  to  the 
Batetelas,  who  are  of  light  brown  colour.  From  child- 
hood the  females  of  this  tribe  have  a  sense  of  modesty 
that  is  in  sharp  contrast  with  the  nudity  that  prevails 
elsewhere  throughout  the  country.  They  swathe  their 
bodies  from  neck  to  ankle  with  gaily  coloured  calico. 
I  am  often  asked  if  the  scant  attire  in  Central  Africa 
shocked  me.  I  invariably  reply  by  saying  that  the  con- 
temporary feminine  fashion  of  near-imdress  in  America 


AMERICA    IN    THE    CONGO  249 

and  Europe  made  me  feel  that  some  of  the  chololate- 
hued  ladies  of  the  jungle  were  almost  over-clothed  1 

The  fourth  day  of  my  trip  was  also  the  American 
Fourth  of  July.  Captain  Carrie  and  I  celebrated  by 
toasting  the  British  and  American  Navies,  and  it  was 
not  in  Kasai  water.  This  day  also  witnessed  a  somewhat 
remarkable  revelation  of  the  fact  that  world  economic 
unrest  has  penetrated  to  the  very  heart  of  the  primitive 
regions.  While  the  wood-boys  were  getting  fuel  at  a 
native  post,  Carrie  and  I  went  ashore  to  take  a  walk 
and  visit  a  chief  who  had  once  been  in  Belgium.  When 
we  got  back  to  the  boat  we  found  that  all  the  natives  had 
suspended  work  and  were  listening  to  an  impassioned 
speech  by  one  of  the  black  wheelmen.  All  these  boats 
have  native  pilots.  This  boy,  who  only  wore  a  loin 
cloth,  was  urging  his  fellows  not  to  work  so  hard. 
Among  other  things  he  said : 

"The  white  man  eats  big  food  and  takes  a  big  sleep  in 
the  middle  of  the  day  and  you  ought  to  do  the  same 
thing.  The  company  that  owns  this  boat  has  much 
money  and  you  should  all  be  getting  more  wages." 

Carrie  stopped  the  harangue,  fined  the  pilot  a  week's 
pay,  and  the  men  went  back  to  work,  but  the  poison  had 
been  planted.  This  illuminating  episode  is  just  one  of 
the  many  evidences  of  industrial  insurgency  that  I 
found  in  Africa  from  the  moment  I  struck  Capetown. 
In  the  Rand  gold  mining  district,  for  example,  the  na- 
tives have  been  organized  by  British  agitators  and  it 
probably  will  not  be  long  before  Central  Africa  has  the 
I.  W.  W.  in  its  midst  I  Certainly  the  "I  Won't  Works" 
already  exist  in  large  nimibers. 

This  essentially  modem  spirit  was  only  one  of  the 
many  surprises  that  the  Congo  native  disclosed.  An- 
other was  the  existence  of  powerful  secret  societies  which 


250         AN    AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

have  codes,  "grips,"  and  pass-words.  Some  antedate 
the  white  man,  indulge  in  human  sacrifice,  and  have 
branches  in  a  dozen  sections.  Although  Central  Africa 
is  a  land  where  the  husband  can  stray  from  home  at  will, 
the  "lodge  night"  is  thus  available  as  an  excuse  for  do- 
mestic indiscretion. 

The  most  terrible  of  these  orders  is  the  Society  of 
the  Leopard,  formed  to  provide  a  novel  and  devilish 
method  of  disposing  of  enemies.  The  members  wear 
leopard  skins  or  spotted  habits  and  throttle  their  foes 
with  a  glove  to  which  steel  blades  are  affixed.  The  vic- 
tim appears  to  have  been  killed  by  the  animal  that  cannot 
change  its  spots.  To  make  the  illusion  complete,  the 
ground  where  the  victim  has  lain  is  marked  with  a  stick 
whose  end  resembles  the  feet  of  the  leopard. 

The  leopard  skin  has  a  curious  significance  in  the 
Congo.  For  occasions  where  the  white  man  takes  an 
oath  on  the  Bible,  the  savage  steps  over  one  of  these 
skins  to  swear  fealty.  If  two  chiefs  have  had  a  quarrel 
and  make  up,  they  tear  a  skin  in  two  and  throw  the 
pieces  into  the  river,  to  show  that  the  feud  is  rent  asun- 
der. It  corresponds  to  the  pipe  of  peace  of  the  Ameri- 
can Indian. 

Another  secret  society  in  the  Congo  is  the  Lubuki, 
whose  initiation  makes  riding  the  goat  seem  like  a 
childish  amusement.  The  candidate  is  tied  to  a  tree  and 
a  nest  of  black  ants  is  distributed  over  his  body.  He  is 
released  only  after  he  is  nearly  stung  to  death.  A  repe- 
tition of  this  jungle  third  degree  is  threatened  for  vio- 
lation of  any  of  the  secrets  of  the  order,  the  main  pur- 
pose of  which  is  to  graft  on  non-members  for  food  and 
other  necessities. 

In  civilized  life  the  members  of  a  fraternal  society 
are  summoned  to  a  meeting  by  telephone  or  letter.    In 


AMERICA    IN    THE    CONGO  251 

the  Congo  they  are  haled  by  the  tom-tom,  which  is  the 
wireless  of  the  woods.  These  huge  drums  have  an  un- 
canny carrying  power.  The  beats  are  like  the  dots  and 
dashes  of  telegraphy.  All  the  native  news  of  Central 
Africa  is  transmitted  from  village  to  village  in  this  way. 

I  could  continue  this  narrative  of  native  habits  and 
customs  indefinitely  but  we  must  get  back  to  the  "Lu- 
sanga."  On  board  was  a  real  character.  He  was  Peter 
the  capita.  In  the  Congo  every  group  of  native  work- 
men is  in  charge  of  a  capita,  who  would  be  designated  a 
foreman  in  this  coimtry.  Life  and  varied  experience  had 
battered  Peter  sadly.  He  spoke  English,  French,  Ger- 
man, Portuguese,  and  half  a  dozen  of  the  Congo  dia- 
lects. He  learned  German  while  a  member  of  an  Afri- 
can dancing  team  that  performed  at  the  Winter  Garden 
in  Berlin.  His  German  almost  had  a  Potsdam  flavour. 
He  told  me  that  he  had  danced  before  the  former  Kaiser 
and  had  met  many  members  of  the  Teutonic  nobility. 
Yet  the  thing  that  stood  out  most  vividly  in  his  memory 
was  the  taste  of  German  beer.    He  sighed  for  it  daily. 

Six  days  after  leaving  Kinshassa  I  reluctantly  bade 
farewell  to  Peter  and  the  "Lusanga"  at  Dima.  Here 
I  had  the  first  piece  of  hard  luck  on  the  whole  trip.  The 
little  steamer  that  was  to  take  me  up  the  Kasai  River 
to  Djoko  Punda  had  departed  five  days  before  and  I 
was  forced  to  wait  until  she  returned.  Fifteen  years 
ago  Dima  was  the  wildest  kind  of  jungle.  I  found  it  a 
model,  tropical  post  with  dozens  of  brick  houses,  a  ship- 
yard and  machine  shops,  avenues  of  palm  trees  and  a 
farm.  It  is  the  headquarters  of  the  Kasai  Company  in 
the  Congo. 

I  had  a  brick  bungalow  to  myself  and  ate  with  the 
Managing  Director,  Monsieur  Adrian  Van  den  Hove. 
He  knew  no  English  and  my  alleged  French  was  pretty 


252         AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

bad.  Yet  we  met  three  times  a  day  at  the  table  and 
carried  on  spirited  conversations.  There  was  only  one 
English-speaking  person  within  a  radius  of  a  hundred 
miles  and  I  had  read  all  my  English  books.  I  vented 
my  impatience  in  walking,  for  I  covered  at  least  fifteen 
miles  through  the  jungle  every  day.  This  proceeding 
filled  both  the  Belgians  and  the  natives  with  astonish- 
ment. The  latter  particularly  could  not  understand 
why  a  man  walked  about  the  country  aimlessly.  Usually 
a  native  will  only  walk  when  he  can  move  in  the  direc- 
tion of  food  or  sleep.  On  these  solitary  trips  I  went 
through  a  country  that  still  abounds  in  buffalo.  Occa- 
sionally you  see  an  elephant.  It  is  one  thing  to  watch 
a  big  tusker  doing  his  tricks  in  a  circus  tent,  but  quite 
another  to  hear  him  floundering  through  the  woods, 
tearing  off  huge  branches  of  trees  as  he  moves  along 
with  what  seems  to  be  an  incredible  speed  for  so  heavy 
an  animal. 

There  came  the  glad  Sunday  —  it  was  my  thirteenth 
day  at  Dima  —  when  I  heard  the  whistle  of  the  steam- 
boat. I  dashed  down  to  the  beach  and  there  was  the 
little  forty-ton  "Madeleine."  I  welcomed  her  as  a  long- 
lost  friend  and  this  she  proved  to  be.  The  second  day 
afterwards  I  went  aboard  and  began  a  diverting  chapter 
of  my  experience.  The  "Madeleine"  is  a  type  of  the 
veteran  Congo  boat.  In  the  old  days  the  Belgian  pio- 
neers fought  natives  from  its  narrow  deck.  Despite  in- 
cessant combat  with  sand-banks,  snags  and  swift  cur- 
rents—  all  these  obstructions  aboimd  in  the  Kasai 
River  —  she  was  still  staunch.  In  command  was  the 
only  Belgian  captain  that  I  had  in  the  Congo,  and  he 
had  been  on  these  waters  for  twenty  years  with  only  one 
holiday  in  Europe  during  the  entire  time. 

I  occupied  the  alleged  cabin-de-luxe,  the  large  room 


AMERICA   IN    THE    CONGO  253 

that  all  these  boats  must  furnish  in  case  an  important 
State  functionary  wants  to  travel.  My  fellow  passen- 
gers were  two  Catholic  priests  and  three  Belgian 
"agents,"  as  the  Congo  factors  are  styled.  I  ate  alone 
on  the  main  deck  in  front  of  my  cabin,  with  Nelson  in 
attendance. 

Now  began  a  journey  that  did  not  lack  adventure.  It 
was  the  end  of  the  dry  season  and  the  Kasai  was  lower 
than  ever  before.  The  channel  was  almost  a  continuous 
sand-bank.  We  rested  on  one  of  them  for  a  whole  day. 
I  was  now  well  into  the  domain  of  the  hippopotamus. 
I  am  not  exaggerating  when  I  say  that  the  Kasai  in 
places  is  alive  with  them.  You  can  shoot  one  of  these 
monsters  from  the  bridge  of  the  river  boats  almost  as 
easily  as  you  could  pick  off  a  sparrow  from  the  limb  of 
a  park  tree.  I  got  tired  of  watching  them.  The  flesh 
of  the  hippopotamus  is  unfit  for  white  consumption, 
but  the  natives  regard  it  as  a  luxury.  The  white  man 
who  kills  a  hippo  is  immediately  acclaimed  a  hero.  One 
reason  is  that  with  spears  the  black  finds  it  difficult  to 
get  the  better  of  one  of  these  animals. 

Our  first  step  was  at  a  Lutheran  Mission  set  in  the 
middle  of  a  populous  village.  As  we  approached  I  saw 
the  American  flag  hanging  over  the  door  of  the  most 
pretentious  mud  and  grass  house.  When  I  went  ashore 
I  found  that  the  missionaries  —  a  man  and  his  wife  — 
were  both  American  citizens.  The  husband  was  a 
Swede  who  had  gone  out  to  Kansas  in  his  boyhood  to 
work  on  a  farm.  There  he  married  a  Kansas  girl,  who 
now  speaks  English  with  a  Swedish  accent.  After 
spreading  the  gospel  in  China  and  elsewhere,  they 
settled  down  in  this  lonely  spot  on  the  Kasai  River. 

I  was  immediately  impressed  with  the  difference  be- 
tween the  Congo  River  and  the  Kasai.    The  Congo  is 


254  AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

serene,  brooding,  majestic,  and  fringed  with  an  endless 
verdure.  The  Kasai,  although  1,500  miles  in  length,  is 
narrower  and  more  pugnacious.  Its  brown  banks  and 
grim  flanking  mountains  offer  a  welcome  change  from 
the  eternal  green  of  the  great  river  that  gives  the  Colony- 
its  name.  The  Kasai  was  discovered  by  Livingstone 
in  1854. 

I  also  got  another  change.  Two  days  after  I  left 
Dima  we  were  blanketed  with  heavy  fog  every  morning 
and  the  air  was  raw  and  chill.  On  the  Kasai  you  can 
have  every  experience  of  trans- Atlantic  travel  with  the 
sole  exception  of  seasickness. 

As  I  proceeded  up  the  Kasai  I  found  continued  evi- 
dence of  the  advance  in  price  of  every  food  commodity. 
The  omnipresent  chicken  that  fetched  a  franc  in  1914 
now  brings  from  five  to  ten.  My  old  friend  the  goat 
has  risen  from  ten  to  thirty  francs  and  he  was  as  tough 
as  ever,  despite  the  rise.  But  foodstuffs  are  only  a  small 
part  of  these  Congo  economic  troubles. 

We  have  suffered  for  some  time  imder  the  burden  of 
our  inseparable  companion,  the  High  Cost  of  Living. 
It  is  slight  compared  with  the  High  Cost  of  Loving  in 
the  Congo.  Here  you  touch  a  real  hardship.  Before 
the  war  a  first-class  wife  —  all  wives  are  bought  —  sold 
for  fifty  francs.  Today  the  market  price  for  a  choice 
spouse  is  two  hundred  francs  and  it  takes  hard  digging 
for  the  black  man  to  scrape  up  this  almost  prohibitive 
fee.  Thus  the  High  Cost  of  Matrimony  enters  the  list 
of  universal  distractions. 

On  the  "Madeleine"  was  a  fascinating  black  child 
named  Nanda.  He  was  about  five  years  old  and  strolled 
about  the  boat  absolutely  naked.  Most  Congo  parents 
are  fond  of  their  offspring  but  this  particular  youngster, 
who  was  bright  and  alert,  was  adored  by  his  father,  the 


FISHERMEN  ON  THE  SANKURU 


THE  FALLS  OF  THE  SANKURU 


AMERICA    IN    THE    CONGO  255 

head  fireman  on  the  vessel.  One  day  I  gave  him  a  cake 
and  it  was  the  first  piece  of  sweet  bread  he  had  ever 
eaten.  Evidently  he  liked  it  for  afterwards  he  ap- 
proached me  every  hour  with  his  little  hands  out- 
stretched. I  was  anxious  to  get  a  photograph  of  him 
in  his  natural  state  and  took  him  ashore  ostensibly  for 
a  walk.  One  of  my  fellow  passengers  had  a  camera  and 
I  asked  him  to  come  along.  When  the  boy  saw  that  he 
was  about  to  be  snapped  he  rushed  back  to  the  boat 
yelling  and  howling.  I  did  not  know  what  was  the  mat- 
ter until  he  returned  in  about  ten  minutes,  wearing  an 
abbreviated  pair  of  pants  and  a  short  coat.  He  was  will- 
ing to  walk  about  nude  but  when  it  came  to  being  pic- 
tured he  suddenly  became  modest.  This  state  of  mind, 
however,  is  not  general  in  the  Colony. 

The  African  child  is  fond  of  playthings  which  shows 
that  one  touch  of  amusement  makes  all  childhood  kin. 
He  will  swim  half  a  mile  through  a  crocodile-infested 
river  to  get  an  empty  tin  can  or  a  bottle.  One  of  the 
favorite  sports  on  the  river  boats  is  to  throw  boxes  or 
bottles  into  the  water  and  then  watch  the  children  race 
for  them.  On  the  Congo  the  fathers  sometimes  manu- 
facture rude  reproductions  of  steamboats  for  their 
children  and  some  of  them  are  astonishingly  well  made. 

Exactly  twelve  days  after  we  left  Dima  the  captain 
told  me  that  we  were  nearing  Djoko  Punda.  The 
country  was  mountainous  and  the  river  had  become 
swifter  and  deeper  for  we  were  approaching  Wissmann 
Falls,  the  end  of  navigation  for  some  distance.  These 
falls  are  named  for  Herman  Wissman,  a  lieutenant  in 
the  Prussian  Army  who  in  the  opinion  of  such  authori- 
ties as  Sir  Harry  Johnston,  ranks  third  in  the  heirarchy 
of  early  Congo  explorers.  Stanley,  of  course,  comes 
first  and  Grenfell  second. 


256         AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

On  account  of  the  lack  of  certain  communication  save 
by  runner  in  this  part  of  Africa  — the  traveller  can 
always  beat  a  wireless  message  —  I  was  unable  to  send 
any  word  of  my  coming  and  I  wondered  whom  and  what 
I  would  find  there.  I  had  the  strongest  possible  letters 
to  all  the  Forminiere  officials  but  these  pieces  of  paper 
could  not  get  me  on  to  Tshikapa.  I  needed  something 
that  moved  on  wheels.  I  was  greatly  relieved,  there- 
fore, when  we  came  in  sight  of  the  post  to  see  two  un- 
mistakable American  figures  standing  on  the  bank. 
What  cheered  me  further  were  two  American  motor 
cars  nearby. 

The  two  Americans  proved  to  be  G.  D.  Moody  and 
J.  E.  Robison.  The  former  is  Assistant  Chief  Engi- 
neer of  the  Forminiere  in  the  field  and  the  latter  is  in 
charge  of  the  motor  transport.  They  gave  me  a  genu- 
ine American  welcome  and  that  night  I  dined  in  Robi- 
son's  grass  house  off  American  food  that  had  travelled 
nearly  fifteen  thousand  miles.  I  heard  the  first  un- 
adulterated Yankee  conversation  that  had  fallen  on  my 
ears  since  I  left  Elizabeth ville  two  months  before. 
When  I  said  that  I  wanted  to  push  on  to  Tshikapa  at 
once,  Moody  said,  "We  will  leave  at  five  in  the  morn- 
ing in  one  of  the  jitneys  and  be  in  Tshikapa  tomorrow 
night."  Moody  was  an  incorrigible  optimist  as  I  was 
soon  to  discover* 


IV 

AT  DAWN  the  next  morning  and  after  a 
breakfast  of  hot  cakes  we  set  out.  Nelson  was 
in  a  great  state  of  excitement  because  he  had 
never  ridden  in  an  automobile  before.  He  was  destined 
not  to  enjoy  that  rare  privilege  very  long.  The  rough 
highway  hewed  by  American  engineers  through  the 
thick  woods  was  a  foot  deep  in  sand  and  before  we  had 
proceeded  a  himdred  yards  the  car  got  stuck  and  all 
hands  save  Moody  got  out  to  push  it  on.  Moody  was 
the  chauffeur  and  had  to  remain  at  the  wheel.  Draped 
in  fog,  the  jungle  about  me  had  an  almost  eerie  look. 
But  aesthetic  and  emotional  observations  had  to  give 
way  to  practicality.  Laboriously  the  jitney  snorted 
through  the  sand  and  bumped  over  tree  stumps.  After 
a  strenuous  hour  and  when  we  had  reached  the  open 
country,  the  machine  gave  a  groan  and  died  on  the 
spot.  We  were  on  a  broad  plain  on  the  outskirts  of  a 
village  and  the  broiling  sun  beat  down  on  us. 

The  African  picaninny  has  just  as  much  curiosity 
as  his  American  brother  and  in  ten  minutes  the  whole 
juvenile  population  was  assembled  around  us.  Soon  the 
grown-ups  joined  the  crowd.  Naked  women  examined 
the  tires  as  if  they  were  articles  of  food  and  black  war- 
riors stalked  about  with  the  same  sort  of  "I  told  you  so" 
expression  that  you  find  in  the  face  of  the  average 
American  watching  a  motor  car  breakdown.  Human 
nature  is  the  same  the  world  over.  The  automobile  is 
a  novelty  in  these  parts  and  when  the  Forminiere  em- 
ployed the  first  ones  the  natives  actually  thought  it  was 

«57 


258         AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

an  animal  that  would  finally  get  tired  and  quit.  Mine 
stopped  without  getting  tired ! 

Fir  six  hours  Moody  laboured  under  the  car  while  I 
sat  in  the  glaring  sun  alongside  the  road  and  cursed 
fate.  Nelson  spent  his  time  eating  all  the  available 
food  in  sight.  Finally,  at  three  o'clock  Moody  gave  up 
and  said,  "We'll  have  to  make  the  rest  of  this  trip  in 
a  teapoy." 

A  teapoy  is  usually  a  hammock  slung  on  a  pole  carried 
on  the  shoulders  of  natives.  We  sent  a  runner  in  to 
Robison,  who  came  back  with  two  teapoys  and  a  squad 
of  forty  blacks  to  transport  us.  The  "teapoy  boy,"  as  he 
is  called,  is  as  much  a  part  of  the  African  scheme  of 
life  as  a  driver  or  a  chauffeur  is  in  America.  He  must 
be  big,  strong,  and  sound  of  wind,  because  he  is  re- 
quired to  go  at  a  run  all  the  time.  For  any  considerable 
journey  each  teapoy  has  a  squad  of  eight  men  who  al- 
ternate on  the  run  without  losing  a  step.  They  always 
sing  as  they  go. 

I  had  never  ridden  in  a  teapoy  before  and  now  I 
began  a  continuous  trip  in  one  which  lasted  eight  hours. 
Night  fell  almost  before  we  got  started  and  it  was  a 
strange  sensation  to  go  sailing  through  the  silent  black 
woods  and  the  excited  villages  where  thousands  of 
naked  persons  of  all  sizes  turned  out  to  see  the  show. 
After  two  hours  I  began  to  feel  as  if  I  had  been  tossed 
up  for  a  week  in  an  army  blanket.  The  wrist  watch  that 
I  had  worn  throughout  the  war  and  which  had  with- 
stood the  fiercest  shell  shocks  and  bombardments,  was 
jolted  to  a  standstill.  After  the  fourth  hour  I  became 
accustomed  to  the  movement  and  even  went  to  sleep  for 
a  while.  Midnight  brought  us  to  Kabambaie  and  the 
banks  of  the  Kasai,  where  I  found  food  and  sanctuary 
at  a  Forminiere  post.    Here  the  thousands  of  tons  of 


AMERICA    IN    THE    CONGO  259 

freight  that  come  up  the  river  from  Dima  by  steamer 
and  which  are  carried  by  motor  trucks,  ox  teams,  and  on 
the  heads  of  natives  to  this  point,  are  placed  on  whale- 
boats  and  sent  up  the  river  to  Tshikapa. 

Before  going  to  bed  I  sent  a  runner  to  Tshikapa  to 
notify  Donald  Doyle,  Managing  Engineer  of  the 
Forminiere  in  the  field,  that  I  was  coming  and  to  send 
a  motor  car  out  to  meet  me.  I  promised  this  runner 
much  mataheesh,  which  is  the  African  word  for  a  tip, 
if  he  would  run  the  whole  way.  The  distance  through 
the  jungle  was  exactly  seventy-two  miles  and  he  covered 
it,  as  I  discovered  when  I  reached  Tshikapa,  in  exactly 
twenty-six  hours,  a  remarkable  feat.  The  mataheesh 
I  bestowed,  by  the  way,  was  three  francs  (about  eighteen 
cents)  and  the  native  regarded  it  as  a  princely  gift  be- 
cause it  amounted  to  nearly  half  a  month's  wages. 

By  this  time  my  confidence  in  the  African  jitney  was 
somewhat  shaken.  A  new  motor-boat  had  just  been 
received  at  Kabambaie  and  I  thought  I  would  take  a 
chance  with  it  and  start  up  the  Kasai  the  next  day. 
Moody,  assisted  by  several  other  engineers,  set  to  work 
to  get  it  in  shape.  At  noon  of  the  second  day,  when  we 
were  about  to  start,  the  engine  went  on  a  sympathetic 
strike  with  the  jitney,  and  once  more  I  was  halted.  I 
said  to  Moody,  "I  am  going  to  Tshikapa  without  any 
further  delay  if  I  have  to  walk  the  whole  way."  This 
was  not  necessary  for,  thanks  to  the  Forminiere  organi- 
zation, which  always  has  hundreds  of  native  porters  at 
Kabambaie,  I  was  able  to  organize  a  caravan  in  a  few 
hours. 

After  lunch  we  departed  with  a  complete  outfit  of 
tents,  bedding,  and  servants.  The  black  personnel  was 
thirty  porters  and  a  picked  squad  of  thirty-five  teapoy 
boys  to  carry  Moody  and  myself.    Usually  these  cara- 


260         AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

vans  have  a  flag.  I  had  none  so  the  teapoy  capita  fished 
out  a  big  red  bandanna  handkerchief,  which  he  tied  to 
a  stick.  With  the  crimson  banner  flying  and  the  teapoy 
carriers  singing  and  playing  rude  native  instruments, 
we  started  off  at  a  trot.  I  felt  like  an  explorer  going 
into  the  unknown  places.  It  was  the  real  thing  in 
jungle  experience. 

From  two  o'clock  until  sunset  we  trotted  through  the 
wilds,  which  were  almost  thrillingly  beautiful.  In 
Africa  there  is  no  twilight,  and  darkness  swoops  down 
like  a  hawk.  All  afternoon  the  teapoy  men,  after  their 
fashion,  carried  on  what  was  literally  a  running  cross- 
fire of  questions  among  themselves.  They  usually  boast 
of  their  strength  and  their  families  and  always  discuss 
the  white  man  they  are  carrying  and  his  characteristics. 
I  heard  much  muttering  of  Mafutta  Mingi  and  I  knew 
long  before  we  stopped  that  my  weight  was  not  a  pleas- 
ant topic. 

I  will  try  to  reproduce  some  of  the  conversation  that 
went  on  that  afternoon  between  my  carriers.  I  will 
not  give  the  native  words  but  will  translate  into  English 
the  questions  and  answers  as  they  were  hurled  back  and 
forth.  By  way  of  explanation  let  me  say  beforehand 
that  there  is  no  word  in  any  of  the  Congo  dialects  for 
"yes."  Affirmation  is  always  expressed  by  a  grunt. 
Here  is  the  conversation: 

"Men  of  the  white  men." 

"Ugh." 

"Does  he  lie?" 

"He  hes  not." 

"Does  he  shirk?" 

"No." 

"Does  he  steal?" 

"No." 


A  CONGO  DIAMOND  MINE 


HOW  THE  MINES  ARE  WORKED 


AMERICA   IN    THE    CONGO  261 

"Am  I  strong?" 

"Ugh." 

"Have  I  a  good  liver?" 

"Ugh." 

So  it  goes.  One  reason  why  these  men  talk  so  much 
is  that  all  their  work  must  be  accompanied  by  some 
sound.  Up  in  the  diamond  fields  I  watched  a  native 
chopping  wood.  Every  time  the  steel  blade  buried  itself 
in  the  log  the  man  said:  "Good  axe.  Cut  deep."  He 
talked  to  the  weapon  just  as  he  would  speak  to  a  human 
being.  It  all  goes  to  show  that  the  Congo  native  is 
simply  a  child  grown  to  man's  stature. 

The  fact  that  I  had  to  resort  to  the  teapoy  illustrates 
the  unreliability  of  mechanical  transport  in  the  wilds. 
I  had  tried  in  vain  to  make  progress  with  an  automobile 
and  a  motor  boat,  and  was  forced  as  a  last  resort  to  get 
back  to  the  human  being  as  carrier.  He  remains  the 
imfailing  beast  of  burden  despite  all  scientific  progress. 

I  slept  that  night  in  a  native  house  on  the  outskirts 
of  a  village.  It  was  what  is  called  a  chitenda,  which  is 
a  grass  structure  open  at  all  the  sides.  The  last  white 
man  to  occupy  this  domicile  was  Louis  Franck,  the 
Belgian  Minister  of  the  Colonies,  who  had  gone  up  to 
the  Forminiere  diamond  fields  a  few  weeks  before.  He 
used  the  same  jitney  that  I  had  started  in,  and  it  also 
broke  down  with  him.  Moody  was  his  chauffeur.  They 
made  their  way  on  foot  to  this  village.  Moody  told  the 
chief  that  he  had  the  real  Bula  Matadi  with  him.  The 
chief  solemnly  looked  at  Franck  and  said,  "He  is  no 
Bula  Matadi  because  he  does  not  wear  any  medals." 
Most  high  Belgian  officials  wear  orders  and  the  native 
dotes  on  shiny  ornaments.  The  old  savage  refused  to 
sell  the  travellers  any  food  and  the  Minister  had  to 


262  AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

share  the  beans  of  the  negro  boys  who  accompanied 
him. 

Daybreak  saw  us  on  the  move.  For  hours  we  swung 
through  dense  forest  which  made  one  think  of  the  be- 
ginnings of  the  world  when  the  big  trees  were  king. 
The  vastness  and  silence  were  only  comparable  to  the 
brooding  mystery  of  the  jungle  nights.  You  have  no 
feel  of  fear  but  oddly  enough,  a  strange  sense  of  se- 
curity. 

I  realized  as  never  before,  the  truth  that  lay  behind 
one  of  Stanley's  convictions.  He  once  said,  "No  luxury 
of  civilization  can  be  equal  to  the  relief  from  the  tyranny 
of  custom.  The  wilds  of  a  great  city  are  greater  than 
the  excruciating  tyranny  of  a  small  village.  The  heart 
of  Africa  is  infinitely  preferable  to  the  heart  of  the 
world's  largest  city.  If  the  way  were  easier,  millions 
would  fly  to  it." 

Despite  this  enthralling  environment  I  kept  wonder- 
ing if  that  runner  had  reached  Doyle  and  if  a  car  had 
been  sent  out.  At  noon  we  emerged  from  the  forest  into 
a  clearing.  Suddenly  Moody  said,  *'I  hear  an  auto- 
mobile engine."  A  moment  later  I  saw  a  small  car 
burst  through  the  trees  far  ahead  and  I  knew  that  relief 
was  at  hand.  Dr.  John  Dunn,  the  physician  at  Tshikapa, 
had  started  at  dawn  to  meet  me,  and  my  teapoy  ad- 
ventures, for  the  moment,  were  ended.  Dr.  Livingstone 
at  Ujiji  had  no  keener  feeling  of  relief  at  the  sight  of 
Stanley  that  I  felt  when  I  shook  the  hand  of  this 
bronzed.  Middle  Western  medico. 

We  lunched  by  the  roadside  and  afterwards  I  got 
into  Dunn's  car  and  resumed  the  journey.  I  sent  the 
porters  and  teapoy  men  back  to  Kabambaie.  Late  in 
the  afternoon  we  reached  the  bluffs  overlooking  the 
Upper  Kasai.    Across  the  broad,  foaming  river  was 


AMERICA   IN    THE    CONGO  263 

Tshikapa.  If  I  had  not  known  that  it  was  an  American 
settlement,  I  would  have  sensed  its  sponsorship.  It 
radiated  order  and  neatness.  The  only  parallels  in  the 
Congo  are  the  various  areas  of  the  Huileries  du  Congo 
Beige. 


V 

TSHIKAPA,  which  means  "belt,"  is  a  Little 
America  in  every  sense.  It  commands  the 
junction  of  the  Tshikapa  and  Kasai  rivers. 
There  are  dozens  of  substantial  brick  dwellings,  offices, 
warehouses,  machine-shops  and  a  hospital.  For  a  hun- 
dred miles  to  the  Angola  border  and  far  beyond,  the 
Yankee  has  cut  motor  roads  and  set  up  civilization 
generally.  You  see  American  thoroughness  on  all  sides, 
even  in  the  immense  native  villages  where  the  mine  em- 
ployees live.  Instead  of  having  compounds  the  company 
encourages  the  blacks  to  establish  their  own  settlements 
and  live  their  own  lives.  It  makes  them  more  contented 
and  therefore  more  efficient,  and  it  establishes  a  colony 
of  permanent  workers.  When  the  native  is  confined 
to  a  compound  he  gets  restless  and  wants  to  go  back 
home.  The  Americans  are  helping  to  solve  the  Congo 
labour  problem. 

At  Tshikapa  you  hear  good  old  United  States  spoken 
with  every  dialectic  flavour  from  New  England  hardness 
to  Texas  drawl.  In  charge  of  all  the  operations  in  the 
field  was  Doyle,  a  clear-cut,  upstanding  American  en- 
gineer who  had  served  his  apprenticeship  in  the  Angola 
jungles,  where  he  was  a  member  of  one  of  the  first 
American  prospecting  parties.  With  his  wife  he  lived 
in  a  large  brick  bungalow  and  I  was  their  guest  in  it 
during  my  entire  stay  in  the  diamond  fields.  Mrs. 
Doyle  embodied  the  same  courage  that  animated  Mrs. 
Wallace.  Too  much  cannot  be  said  of  the  faith  and  f orti- 

264 


AMERICA    IN    THE    CONGO  265 

tude  of  these  women  who  share  their  husband's  fortunes 
out  at  the  frontiers  of  civilization. 

At  Tshikapa  there  were  other  white  women,  including 
Mrs.  Dunn,  who  had  recently  converted  her  hospitable 
home  into  a  small  maternity  hospital.  Only  a  few 
weeks  before  my  arrival  Mrs.  Edwin  Barclay,  wife  of 
the  manager  of  the  Mabonda  Mine,  had  given  birth  to 
a  girl  baby  under  its  roof,  and  I  was  taken  over  at  once 
to  see  the  latest  addition  to  the  American  colony. 

On  the  day  of  my  arrival  the  natives  employed  at  this 
mine  had  sent  Mrs.  Barclay  a  gift  of  fifty  newly-laid 
eggs  as  a  present  for  the  baby.  Accompanying  it  was 
a  rude  note  scrawled  by  one  of  the  foremen  who  had 
attended  a  Presbyterian  mission  school.  The  birth  of  a 
white  baby  is  always  a  great  event  in  the  Congo.  When 
Mrs.  Barclay  returned  to  her  home  a  grand  celebration 
was  held  and  the  natives  feasted  and  danced  in  honour 
of  the  infant. 

There  is  a  delisrhtful  social  life  at  Tshikapa.  Most 
of  the  mines,  which  are  mainly  in  charge  of  American 
engineers,  are  within  a  day's  travelling  distance  in  a 
teapoy  and  much  nearer  by  automobile.  Some  of  the 
managers  have  their  families  with  them,  and  they  fore- 
gather at  the  main  post  every  Sunday.  On  Thanksgiv- 
iner,  the  Fourth  of  July,  and  Christmas  there  is  always  a 
big  rally  which  includes  a  dance  and  vaudeville  show  in 
the  men's  mess  hall.  The  Stars  and  Stripes  are  un- 
furled to  the  African  breeze  and  the  old  days  in  the 
States  recalled.  It  is  real  community  life  on  the 
fringe  of  the  jungle. 

I  was  struck  with  the  bier  difference  between  the 
Conoro  diamond  fields  and  those  at  Kimberley.  In 
South  Africa  the  mines  are  gaping  gashes  in  the  earth 
thousands  of  feet  wide  and  thousands  deep.    They  are 


266         AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

all  "pipes"  which  are  formed  by  volcanic  eruption. 
These  pipes  are  the  real  source  of  the  diamonds.  The 
precious  blue  ground  which  contains  the  stones  is  spread 
out  on  immense  "floors"  to  decompose  under  sun  and 
rain.  Afterwards  it  is  broken  in  crushers  and  goes 
through  a  series  of  mechanical  transformations.  The 
diamonds  are  separated  from  the  concentrates  on  a 
pulsating  table  covered  with  vaseline.  The  gems  cling 
to  the  oleaginous  substance.    It  is  an  elaborate  process. 

The  Congo  mines  are  alluvial  and  every  creek  and 
river  bed  is  therefore  a  potential  diamond  mine.  The 
only  labour  necessary  is  to  remove  the  upper  layer  of 
earth,  —  the  "overburden"  as  it  is  termed  —  dig  up  the 
gravel,  shake  it  out,  and  you  have  the  concentrate  from 
which  a  naked  savage  can  pick  the  precious  stones. 
They  are  precisely  like  the  mines  of  German  South- 
West  Africa.  So  far  no  "pipes"  have  been  discovered 
in  the  Kasai  basin.  Many  indications  have  been  found, 
and  it  is  inevitable  that  they  will  be  located  in  time. 
The  diamond-bearing  earth  sometimes  travels  very  far 
from  its  base,  and  the  American  engineers  in  the  Congo 
with  whom  I  talked  are  convinced  that  these  volcanic 
formations  which  usually  produce  large  stones,  lie  far 
up  in  the  Kasai  hills.  The  diamond-bearing  area  of  the 
Belgian  Congo  and  Angola  covers  nearly  eight  thou- 
sand square  miles  and  only  five  per  cent  has  been 
prospected.  There  is  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  one 
of  the  greatest  diamond  fields  ever  known  is  in  the 
making  here. 

Now  for  a  real  human  interest  detail.  At  Kimberley 
the  Zulus  and  Kaffirs  know  the  value  of  the  diamond 
and  there  was  formerly  considerable  filching.  All  the 
workers  are  segregated  in  barbed  wire  compounds  and 
kept  under  constant  surveillance.    At  the  end  of  their 


GRAVEL  CARRIERS  AT  A  CONGO  MINE 


CX)NGO  NATIVES  PICKING  01 T  DIAMONDS 


AMERICA    IN    THE    CONGO  267 

period  of  service  they  remain  in  custody  for  two  weeks 
in  order  to  make  certain  that  they  have  not  swallowed 
any  stones. 

The  Congo  natives  do  not  know  what  a  diamond 
really  is.  The  majority  believe  that  it  is  simply  a  piece 
of  glass  employed  in  the  making  of  bottles,  and  there 
are  a  good  many  bottles  of  various  kinds  in  the  Colony. 
Hence  no  watch  is  kept  on  the  hundreds  of  Balubas 
who  are  mainly  employed  in  the  task  of  picking  out  the 
glittering  jewels.  During  the  past  five  years,  when 
the  product  in  the  Congo  fields  has  grown  steadily,  not 
a  single  karat  has  been  stolen.  The  same  situation 
obtains  in  the  Angola  fields. 

In  company  with  Doyle  I  visited  the  eight  principal 
mines  in  the  Congo  field  and  saw  the  process  of  mining 
in  all  its  stages  of  advancement.  At  the  Kisele  de- 
velopment, which  is  almost  within  sight  of  Tshikapa, 
the  small  "jigs"  in  which  the  gravel  is  shaken,  are  oper- 
ated by  hand.  This  is  the  most  primitive  method.  At 
Mabonda  the  concentrate  pans  are  mounted  on  high 
platforms.  Here  the  turning  is  also  by  hand  but  on  a 
larger  scale.  The  Ramona  mine  has  steam-driven  pans, 
while  at  Tshisundu,  which  is  in  charge  of  William  Mc- 
Millan, I  witnessed  the  last  word  in  alluvial  diamond 
mining.  At  this  place  Forminiere  has  erected  an  im- 
posing power  plant  whose  tall  smokestack  dominates 
the  surrounding  forest.  You  get  a  suggestion  of  Kim- 
berley  for  the  excavation  is  immense,  and  there  is  the 
hum  and  movement  of  a  pretentious  industrial  enter- 
prise. Under  the  direction  of  William  McMillan  a 
research  department  has  been  established  which  is  ex- 
pected to  influence  and  possibly  change  alluvial  opera- 
tions. 

Our  luncheon  at  Tshisundu  was  attended  by  Mrs. 


268         AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

McMillan,  another  heroine  of  that  rugged  land.  Along- 
side sat  her  son,  born  in  1918  at  one  of  the  mines  in 
the  field  and  who  was  as  lusty  and  animated  a  youngster 
as  I  have  seen.  His  every  movement  was  followed  by 
the  eagle  eye  of  his  native  nurse  who  was  about  twelve 
years  old.  These  native  attendants  regard  it  as  a  special 
privilege  to  act  as  custodians  of  a  white  child  and  in- 
variably a  close  intimacy  is  established  between  them. 
They  really  become  playmates. 

It  is  difficult  to  imagine  that  these  Congo  diamond 
mines  were  mere  patches  of  jungle  a  few  years  ago. 
The  task  of  exploitation  has  been  an  immense  one.  Be- 
fore the  simplest  mine  can  be  operated  the  dense  forest 
must  be  cleared  and  the  river  beds  drained.  Every  day 
the  mine  manager  is  confronted  with  some  problem 
which  tests  his  ingenuity  and  resource.  Only  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  could  hold  his  own  amid  these  trying  circum- 
stances. 

No  less  difficult  were  the  natives  themselves.  Before 
the  advent  of  the  American  engineers,  industry  was  un- 
known in  the  Upper  Kasai.  The  only  organized  ac- 
tivity was  the  harvesting  of  rubber  and  that  was  rather 
a  haphazard  performance.  With  the  opening  of  the 
mines  thousands  of  imtrained  blacks  had  to  be  drawn 
into  organized  service.  They  had  never  even  seen  the 
implements  of  labour  employed  by  the  whites.  When 
they  were  given  wheel-barrows  and  told  to  fill  and 
transport  the  earth,  they  placed  the  barrows  on  their 
heads  and  carried  them  to  the  designated  place.  They 
repeated  the  same  act  with  shovels. 

The  Yankees  have  thoroughly  impressed  the  value 
and  the  nobility  of  labour.  I  asked  one  of  the  employes 
at  a  diamond  mine  what  he  thought  of  the  Americans. 
His  reply  was,  "Americans  and  work  were  born  on  the 
same  day." 


AMERICA    IN    THE    CONGO  269 

The  labour  of  opening  up  the  virgin  land  was  only 
one  phase.  Every  piece  of  machinery  and  every  tin  of 
food  had  to  be  transported  thousands  of  miles  and  this 
condition  still  obtains.  The  motor  road  from  Djoko 
Punda  to  Kabambaie  was  hacked  by  American  en- 
gineers through  the  jungle.  It  is  comparatively  easy 
to  get  supplies  to  Djoko  Punda  although  everything 
must  be  shifted  from  railway  to  boat  several  times.  Be- 
tween Djoko  Punda  and  Tshikapa  the  material  is 
hauled  in  motor  trucks  and  ox-drawn  wagons  or  con- 
veyed on  the  heads  of  porters  to  Kabambaie.  Some  of 
it  is  transshipped  to  whale-boats  and  paddled  up  to 
Tshikapa,  and  the  remainder  continues  in  the  wagons 
overland.  During  1920  seven  hundred  and  fifty  tons 
of  freight  were  hauled  from  Djoko  Punda  in  this 
laborious  way. 

At  the  time  of  my  visit  there  were  twelve  going  mines 
in  the  Congo  field,  and  three  new  ones  were  in  various 
stages  of  advancement.  The  Forminiere  engineers  also 
operate  the  diamond  concessions  of  the  Kasai  Company 
and  the  Bas  Congo  Katanga  Railway  which  will  run 
from  the  Katanga  to  Kinshassa. 

More  than  twelve  thousand  natives  are  employed 
throughout  the  Congo  area  alone  and  nowhere  have  I 
seen  a  more  contented  lot  of  blacks.  The  Forminiere 
obtains  this  good-will  by  wisely  keeping  the  price  of 
trade  goods  such  as  salt  and  calico  at  the  pre-war  rate. 
It  is  an  admirable  investment.  This  merchandise  is 
practically  the  legal  tender  of  the  jungle.  With  a  cup 
of  salt  a  black  man  can  start  an  endless  chain  of  trading 
that  will  net  him  a  considerable  assortment  of  articles 
in  time. 

The  principal  natives  in  the  Upper  Kasai  are  the 
Balubas,  who  bear  the  same  relation  to  this  area  as  the 


270         AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

Bangalas  do  to  the  Upper  Congo.  The  men  are  big, 
strong,  and  fairly  intelligent.  The  principal  tribal  mark 
is  the  absence  of  the  two  upper  central  incisor  teeth. 
These  are  usually  knocked  out  in  early  boyhood.  No 
Baluba  can  marry  until  he  can  show  this  gaping  space 
in  his  mouth.  Although  the  natives  abuse  their  teeth 
by  removing  them  or  filing  them  down  to  points,  they 
take  excellent  care  of  the  remaining  ivories.  Many 
polish  the  teeth  with  a  stick  and  wash  their  mouths 
several  times  a  day.  The  same  cannot  be  said  of  many 
civilized  persons. 

I  observed  that  the  families  in  the  Upper  Kasai 
were  much  more  numerous  that  elsewhere  in  the  Congo. 
A  Bangala  or  Batetela  woman  usually  has  one  child 
and  then  goes  out  of  the  baby  business.  In  the  region 
dominated  by  the  Forminiere  it  is  no  infrequent  thing 
to  see  three  or  four  children  in  a  household.  A  woman 
who  bears  twins  is  not  only  hailed  as  a  real  benefactress 
but  the  village  looks  upon  the  occasion  as  a  good  omen. 
This  is  in  direct  contrast  with  the  state  of  mind  in  East 
Africa,  for  example,  where  one  twin  is  invariably  killed. 

I  encountered  an  interesting  situation  concerning 
twins  when  I  visited  the  Mabonda  Mine.  This  is  one  of 
the  largest  in  the  Congo  field.  Barclay,  the  big-boned 
American  manager,  formerly  conducted  engineering 
operations  in  the  southern  part  of  America.  He  there- 
fore knows  the  Negro  psychology  and  the  result  is  that 
he  conducts  a  sort  of  amiable  and  paternalistic  little 
kingdom  all  his  own.  The  natives  all  come  to  him  with 
their  troubles,  and  he  is  their  friend,  philosopher  and 
guide. 

After  lunch  one  day  he  asked  me  if  I  would  like  to 
talk  to  a  native  who  had  a  story.  When  I  expressed 
assent  he  took  me  out  to  a  shed  nearby  and  there  I  saw 


AMERICA   IN    THE    CONGO  271 

a  husky  Baluba  who  was  labouring  under  some  excite- 
ment. The  reason  was  droll.  Four  days  before,  his 
wife  had  given  birth  to  twins  and  there  was  great  ex- 
citement in  the  village.  The  natives,  however,  refused 
to  have  anything  to  do  with  him  because,  to  use  their 
phrase,  "he  was  too  strong."  His  wife  did  not  come 
under  this  ban  and  was  the  center  of  jubilation  and 
gesticulation.  The  poor  husband  was  a  sort  of  heroic 
outcast  and  had  to  come  to  Barclay  to  get  some  food 
and  a  drink  of  palm  wine  to  revive  his  drooping  spirits. 

The  output  in  the  Congo  diamond  area  has  grown 
from  a  few  thousand  karats  to  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  karats  a  year.  The  stones  are  small  but  clear  and 
brilliant.  This  yield  is  an  unsatisfactory  evidence  of 
the  richness  of  the  domain.  The  ore  reserves  are  more 
than  ten  per  cent  of  the  yearly  output  and  the  surface 
of  the  concession  has  scarcely  been  scratched.  Expe- 
rienced diamond  men  say  that  a  diamond  in  the  ground 
is  worth  two  in  the  market.  It  is  this  element  of  the 
unknown  that  gives  the  Congo  field  one  of  its  principal 
potentialities. 

The  Congo  diamond  fields  are  merely  a  part  of  the 
Forminiere  treasure-trove.  Over  in  Angola  the  con- 
cession is  eight  times  larger  in  area,  the  stones  are 
bigger,  and  with  adequate  exploitation  should  surpass 
the  parent  production  in  a  few  years.  Six  mines  are  al- 
ready in  operation  and  three  more  have  been  staked  out. 
The  Angola  mines  are  alluvial  and  are  operated  pre- 
cisely like  those  in  Belgian  territory.  The  managing 
engineer  is  Glenn  H.  Newport,  who  was  with  Decker 
in  the  fatal  encounter  with  Batchoks.  The  principal 
post  of  this  area  is  Dundu,  which  is  about  forty  miles 
from  the  Congo  border. 

As  I  looked  at  these  mines  with  their  thousands  of 


272         AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

grinning  natives  and  heard  the  rattle  of  gravel  in  the 
"jigs"  my  mind  went  back  to  Kimberley  and  the  im- 
mense part  that  its  glittering  wealth  played  in  determin- 
ing the  economic  fate  of  South  Africa.  Long  before  the 
gold  "rush"  opened  up  in  the  Rand,  the  diamond  mines 
had  given  the  southern  section  of  the  continent  a  rebirth 
of  prosperity.  Will  the  Congo  mines  perform  the  same 
service  for  the  Congo?  In  any  event  they  will  be  a 
determining  factor  in  the  future  world  diamond  output. 

No  record  of  America  in  the  Congo  would  be  complete 
without  a  reference  to  the  high  part  that  our  missionaries 
have  played  in  the  spiritualization  of  the  land.  The 
stronghold  of  our  religious  influence  is  also  the  Upper 
Kasai  Basin.  In  1890  two  devoted  men,  Samuel  N. 
Lapsley,  a  white  clergyman,  and  William  H.  Sheppard, 
a  Negro  from  Alabama,  established  the  American  Pres- 
byterian Congo  Mission  at  Luebo  which  is  about  one 
hundred  miles  from  Tshikapa  straight  across  country. 

The  valley  of  the  Sankuru  and  Kasai  Rivers  is  one  of 
the  most  densely  populated  of  all  the  Belgian  Congo. 
It  is  inhabited  by  five  powerful  tribes  —  the  Baluba,  the 
Bena  Lulua,  the  Bakuba,  the  Bakete  and  the  Zappo- 
zaps,  and  their  united  population  is  one-fifth  of  that  of 
the  whole  Colony.  Hence  it  was  a  fruitful  field  for  la- 
bour but  a  hard  one.  From  an  humble  beginning  the 
work  has  grown  until  there  are  now  seven  important 
stations  with  scores  of  white  workers,  hundreds  of  native 
evangelists,  one  of  the  best  equipped  hospitals  in  Africa, 
and  a  manual  training  school  that  is  teaching  the  youth 
of  the  land  how  to  become  prosperous  and  constructive 
citizens.  Under  its  inspiration  the  population  of  Luebo 
has  grown  from  two  thousand  in  1890  to  eighteen  thou- 
sand in  1920. 

The   two    fundamental    principles    underlying    this 


WASHING  OUT  GRAVEL 


DONALD  DOYLE   (LEFT)   AND   MR.   MARCOSSON 


AMERICA   IN    THE    CONGO  273 

splendid  undertaking  have  been  well  summed  up  at 
follows:  "First,  the  attainment  of  a  Church  supported 
by  the  natives  through  the  thrift  and  industry  of  their 
own  hands.  The  time  is  past  when  we  may  merely 
teach  the  native  to  become  a  Christian  and  then 
leave  him  in  his  poverty  and  squalor  where  he  can 
be  of  little  or  no  use  to  the  Church.  Second,  the  prep- 
aration of  the  native  to  take  the  largest  and  most  in- 
fluential position  possible  in  the  development  of  the 
Colony.  Practically  the  only  thing  open  to  the 
Congolese  is  along  the  mechanical  and  manual  lines." 

One  of  the  noblest  actors  in  this  American  missionary 
drama  was  the  late  Rev.  W.  M.  Morrison,  who  went  out 
to  the  Congo  in  1896.  Realizing  that  the  most  urgent 
need  was  a  native  dictionary,  he  reduced  the  Baluba- 
Lulua  language  to  writing.  In  1906  he  published  a 
Dictionary  and  Grammar  which  included  the  Parables 
of  Christ,  the  Miracles,  the  Epistles  to  the  Romans  in 
paraphrase.  He  also  prepared  a  Catechism  based  on 
the  Shorter  and  Child's  Catechisms.  This  gave  the 
workers  in  the  field  a  definite  instrument  to  employ,  and 
it  has  been  a  beneficent  influence  in  shaping  the  lives  and 
morals  of  the  natives. 

One  phase  of  the  labours  of  the  American  Presby- 
terian Congo  Mission  discloses  the  bondage  of  the 
Congo  native  to  the  Witch  Doctor.  The  moment  he 
feels  sick  he  rushes  to  the  sorcerer,  usually  a  bedaubed 
barbarian  who  practices  weird  and  mysterious  rites,  and 
who  generally  succeeds  in  killing  off  his  patient.  More 
than  ninety  per  cent  of  the  pagan  population  of  Africa 
not  only  acknowledges  but  fears  the  powers  of  the  Witch 
Doctor.  Only  two-fifths  of  one  per  cent  are  under 
Christian  medical  treatment.  The  Presbyterian  Mis- 
sionaries, therefore,  from  the  very  outset  have  sought  to 


274         AN   AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

bring  the  native  into  the  ken  of  the  white  physician.  It 
is  a  slow  process.  One  ahnost  unsurmountable  obstacle 
lies  in  the  uncanny  grip  that  the  "medicine  man"  wields 
in  all  the  tribes. 

It  is  largely  due  to  the  missionaries  that  the  practice 
of  handshaking  has  been  introduced  in  the  Congo. 
Formerly  the  custom  was  to  clap  hands  when  exchang- 
ing greetings.  The  blacks  saw  the  Anglo-Saxons  grasp 
hands  when  they  met  and  being  apt  imitators  in  many 
things,  they  started  to  do  likewise.  One  of  the  first  things 
that  impressed  me  in  Africa  was  the  extraordinary 
amount  of  handshaking  that  went  on  when  the  people 
met  each  other  even  after  a  separation  of  only  half  an 
hour. 


VI 

I  HAD  originally  planned  to  leave  Africa  at  St. 
Paul  de  Loanda  in  Portuguese  West  Africa,  where 
Thomas  F.  Ryan  and  his  Belgian  associates  have 
acquired  the  new  oil  wells  and  set  up  still  another  im- 
portant outpost  of  our  overseas  financial  venturing.  But 
so  much  time  had  been  consumed  in  reaching  Tshikapa 
that  I  determined  to  return  to  Kinshassa,  go  on  to 
Matadi,  and  catch  the  boat  for  Europe  at  the  end  of 
August. 

There  were  two  ways  of  getting  back  to  Kabambaie. 
One  was  to  go  in  an  automobile  through  the  jungle,  and 
the  other  by  boat  down  the  Kasai.  Between  Kabambaie 
and  Djoko  Punda  there  is  practically  no  navigation 
on  account  of  the  succession  of  dangerous  rapids.  Since 
my  faith  in  the  jitney  was  still  impaired  I  chose  the 
river  route  and  it  gave  me  the  most  stirring  of  all  my 
African  experiences.  The  two  motor  boats  at  Tshikapa 
were  out  of  commission  so  I  started  at  daybreak  in  a 
whale-boat  manned  by  forty  naked  native  paddlers. 

The  fog  still  hung  over  the  countryside  and  the  scene 
as  we  got  under  way  was  like  a  Rackham  drawing  of 
goblins  and  ghosts.  I  sat  forward  in  the  boat  with  the 
ranks  of  singing,  paddling  blacks  behind  me.  From  the 
moment  we  started  and  until  I  landed,  the  boys  kept  up 
an  incessant  chanting.  One  of  their  number  sat  forward 
and  pounded  the  iron  gunwale  with  a  heavy  stick. 
When  he  stopped  pounding  the  paddlers  ceased  their 
efforts.  The  only  way  to  make  the  Congo  native  work 
is  to  provide  him  with  noise. 

975 


276  AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

AU  day  we  travelled  down  the  river  through  schools 
of  hippopotami,  some  of  them  near  enough  for  me  to 
throw  a  stone  into  the  cavernous  mouths.  The  boat 
capita  told  me  that  he  would  get  to  Kabambaie  by  sun- 
down. Like  the  average  New  York  restaurant  waiter, 
he  merely  said  what  he  thought  his  listener  wanted  to 
hear.  I  fervently  hoped  he  was  right  because  we  not 
only  had  a  series  of  rapids  to  shoot  up-river,  but  at 
Kabambaie  is  a  seething  whirlpool  that  has  engulfed 
hundreds  of  natives  and  their  boats.  At  sunset  we  had 
only  passed  through  the  first  of  the  troubled  zones. 
Nightfall  without  a  moon  found  me  still  moving,  and 
with  the  swirling  eddy  far  ahead. 

I  had  many  close  calls  during  the  war.  They  ranged 
from  the  first-line  trenches  of  France,  Belgium,  and 
Italy  to  the  mine  fields  of  the  North  Sea  while  a  winter 
gale  blew.  I  can  frankly  say  that  I  never  felt  such  ap- 
prehension as  on  the  face  of  those  surging  waters,  with 
black  night  and  the  impenetrable  jungle  about  me. 
The  weird  singing  of  the  paddlers  only  heightened  the 
suspense.  I  thought  that  every  tight  place  would  be 
my  last.  Finally  at  eight  o'clock,  and  after  it  seemed 
that  I  had  spent  years  on  the  trip,  we  bumped  up  against 
the  shore  of  Kabambaie,  within  a  hundred  feet  of  the 
fatal  spot. 

The  faithful  Moody,  who  preceded  me,  had  revived 
life  in  the  jonah  jitney  and  at  dawn  the  next  day  we 
started  at  full  speed  and  reached  Djoko  Punda  by 
noon.  The  "Madeleine"  was  waiting  for  me  with  steam 
up,  for  I  sent  a  runner  ahead.  I  had  ordered  Nelson 
back  from  Kabambaie  because  plenty  of  servants  were 
available  there.  He  spent  his  week  of  idleness  at  Djoko 
Punda  in  exploring  every  food  known  to  the  country. 
At  one  o'clock  I  was  off  on  the  first  real  stage  of  my 


AMERICA   IN    THE    CONGO  277 

homeward  journey.  The  swift  current  made  the  down- 
ward trip  much  faster  than  the  upward  and  I  was  not 
sorry. 

As  we  neared  Basongo  the  captain  came  to  me  and 
said,  "I  see  two  Americans  standing  on  the  bank.  Shall 
I  take  them  aboard?" 

Almost  before  I  could  say  that  I  would  be  delighted, 
we  were  within  hailing  distance  of  the  post.  An  Ameri- 
can voice  with  a  Cleveland,  Ohio,  accent  called  out  to 
me  and  asked  my  name.  When  I  told  him,  he  said, 
"I'll  give  you  three  copies  of  the  Saturday  Evening 
Post  if  you  will  take  us  down  to  Dima.  We  have  been 
stranded  here  for  nearly  three  weeks  and  want  to  go 
home." 

I  yelled  back  that  they  were  more  than  welcome  for 
I  not  only  wanted  to  help  out  a  pair  of  countrymen  in 
distress  but  I  desired  some  companionship  on  the  boat. 
They  were  Charles  H.  Davis  and  Henry  Fairbairn, 
both  Forminiere  engineers  who  had  made  their  way 
overland  from  the  Angola  diamond  fields.  Only  one 
down-bound  Belgian  boat  had  passed  since  their  arrival 
and  it  was  so  crowded  with  Belgian  officials  on  their  way 
to  Matadi  to  catch  the  August  steamer  for  Europe,  that 
there  was  no  accommodation  for  them.  By  this  time  they 
were  joined  by  a  companion  in  misfortune,  an  American 
missionary,  the  Rev.  Roy  Fields  Cleveland,  who  was 
attached  to  the  Mission  at  Luebo.  He  had  come  to 
Basongo  on  the  little  missionary  steamer,  "The 
Lapsley,"  and  sent  it  back,  expecting  to  take  the  Belgian 
State  boat.    Like  the  engineers,  he  could  get  no  passage. 

Davis  showed  his  appreciation  of  my  rescue  of  the 
party  by  immediately  handing^  over  the  three  copies  of 
the  Post,  which  were  more  than  seven  months  old  and 
which  had  beguiled  his  long  nights  in  the  field.    Cleve- 


278         AN    AFRICAN    ADVENTURE 

land  did  his  bit  in  the  way  of  gratitude  by  providing 
hot  griddle  cakes  every  morning.  He  had  some  Ameri- 
can cornmeal  and  he  had  taught  his  native  servant  how 
to  produce  the  real  article. 

At  Dima  I  had  the  final  heart-throb  of  the  trip.  I 
had  arranged  to  take  the  "Fumu  N'Tangu,"  a  sister 
ship  of  the  "Madeleine,"  from  this  point  to  Kinshassa. 
When  I  arrived  I  found  that  she  was  stuck  on  a  sand- 
bank one  hundred  miles  down  the  river.  My  whole 
race  against  time  to  catch  the  August  steamer  would 
have  been  futile  if  I  could  not  push  on  to  Kinshassa  at 
once. 

Happily,  the  "Yser,"  the  State  boat  that  had  left 
Davis,  Fairbaim,  and  Cleveland  high  and  dry  at 
Basongo,  had  put  in  at  Dima  the  day  before  to  repair 
a  broken  paddle-wheel  and  was  about  to  start.  I  beat 
the  "Madeleine's"  gangplank  to  the  shore  and  tore  over 
to  the  Captain  of  the  "Yser."  When  I  told  him  I  had 
to  go  to  Kinshassa  he  said,  "I  cannot  take  you.  I  only 
have  accommodations  for  eight  people  and  am  carrying 
forty."  I  flashed  my  royal  credentials  on  him  and  he 
yielded.  I  got  the  sofa,  or  rather  the  bench  called  a 
sofa,  in  his  cabin. 

On  the  "Yser"  I  found  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Charles  L. 
Crane,  both  Southerners,  who  were  returning  to  the 
United  States  after  eight  years  at  service  at  one  of  the 
American  Presbyterian  Mission  Stations.  With  them 
were  their  two  youngest  children,  both  bom  in/  the 
Congo.  The  eldest  girl,  who  was  five  years  old,  could 
only  speak  the  Baluba  language.  From  her  infancy 
her  nurses  had  been  natives  and  she  was  facing  the 
problem  of  going  to  America  for  the  first  time  without 
knowing  a  word  of  English.  It  was  quaintly  amusing 
to  hear  her  jabber  with  the  wood-boys  and  the  firemen 


THE  PARK  AT  BOMA 


A  STREET  IN  MATADI 


AMERICA   IN    THE    CONGO  279 

on  board  and  with  the  people  of  the  various  villages 
where  we  stopped. 

The  Cranes  were  splendid  types  of  the  American  mis- 
sionary workers  for  they  were  human  and  companion- 
able. I  had  found  Cleveland  of  the  same  calibre.  Like 
many  other  men  I  had  an  innate  prejudice  against  the 
foreign  church  worker  before  I  went  to  Africa.  I 
left  with  a  strong  admiration  for  him,  and  with  it  a 
profound  respect. 

Kinshassa  looked  good  to  me  when  we  arrived  after 
four  days'  travelling,  but  I  did  not  tarry  long.  I  was 
relieved  to  find  that  I  was  in  ample  time  to  catch  the 
August  steamer  at  Matadi.  It  was  at  Kinshassa  that 
I  learned  of  the  nominations  of  Cox  and  Harding  for 
the  Presidency,  although  the  news  was  months  old. 

The  morning  after  I  reached  Stanley  Pool  I  boarded 
a  special  car  on  the  historic  narrow-gauge  railway  that 
nms  from  Kinshassa  to  Matadi.  At  the  station  I  was 
glad  to  meet  Major  and  Mrs.  Wallace,  who  like  myself 
were  bound  for  home.  I  invited  them  to  share  my  car 
and  we  pulled  out.  On  this  railway,  as  on  all  other 
Congo  lines,  the  passengers  provide  their  own  food. 
The  Wallaces  had  their  servant  whom  I  recognized  as 
one  of  the  staff  at  Alberta.  Nelson  still  held  the  fort 
for  me.  Between  us  we  mobilized  an  elaborate  lunch 
fortified  by  fruit  that  we  bought  at  one  of  the  many 
stations  where  we  halted. 

We  spent  the  night  at  the  hotel  at  Thysville  high 
in  the  moimtains  and  where  it  was  almost  freezinsf  cold. 
This  place  is  named  for  General  Albert  Thys,  who  was 
attached  to  the  colonial  administration  of  King  Leopold 
and  who  founded  the  Compagmie  du  Congo  Pour  le 
Commerce  et  ITndustrie,  the  "Queen-Dowager,"  as  it 
is  called,  of  all  the  Congo  companies.    His  most  endur- 


280         AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

ing  monument,  however,  is  the  Chemin  de  Fer  du  Congo 
Matadi-Stanley  Pool.  He  felt  with  Stanley  that 
there  could  be  no  development  of  the  Congo  without  a 
railway  between  Matadi  and  Stanley  Pool. 

The  necessity  was  apparent.  At  Matadi,  which  is 
about  a  hundred  miles  from  the  sea,  navigation  on  the 
Congo  River  ceases  because  here  begins  a  succession  of 
cataracts  that  extend  almost  as  far  as  Leopoldville.  In 
the  old  days  all  merchandise  had  to  be  carried  in  sixty- 
poimd  loads  to  Stanley  Pool  on  the  heads  of  natives. 
The  way  is  hard  for  it  is  up  and  down  hill  and  traverses 
swamps  and  morasses.  Every  year  ten  thousand  men 
literally  died  in  their  tracks.  The  human  loss  was  only 
one  detail  of  the  larger  loss  of  time. 

Under  the  stimulating  leadership  of  General  Thys, 
the  railway  was  started  in  1890  and  was  opened  for 
traffic  eight  and  a  half  years  later.  Perhaps  no  railway 
in  the  world  took  such  heavy  toll.  It  is  two  hundred 
and  fifty  miles  in  length  and  every  kilometer  cost  a 
white  life  and  every  meter  a  black  one.  Only  the  graves 
of  the  whites  are  marked.  You  can  see  the  unending 
procession  of  headstones  along  the  right  of  way.  Dur- 
ing its  construction  the  project  was  bitterly  assailed. 
The  wiseacres  contended  that  it  was  visionary,  imprac- 
ticable, and  impossible.  In  this  respect  it  suffered  the 
same  experience  as  all  the  other  pioneering  African 
railways  and  especially  those  of  Sierra  Leone,  the  Gold 
Coast,' Uganda,  and  the  Soudan. 

The  scenery  between  Thysville  and  Matadi  is  noble 
and  inspirinsr.  The  track  winds  thronsrh  grim  hie^h- 
lands  and  alonsr  lovelv  valleys.  The  hills  are  rich  with 
colour,  and  occasionally  you  can  see  a  frightened  ante- 
lope scurrying  into  cover  in  the  woods.  As  you  ap- 
proach Matadi  the  landscape  takes  on  a  new  and  more 


AMERICA   IN   THE    CONGO  281 

rugged  beauty.  Almost  before  you  reaKze  it,  you 
emerge  from  a  curve  in  the  mountains  and  the  little 
town  so  intimately  linked  with  Stanley's  early  trials  as 
civilizer,  lies  before  you. 

Matadi  is  built  on  a  solid  piece  of  granite.  The  name 
is  a  version  of  the  word  matari  which  means  rock.  In 
certain  parts  of  Africa  the  letter  "r"  is  often  substituted 
for  "d."  Stanley's  native  name  was  in  reality  "Bula 
Matari,"  but  on  account  of  the  license  that  I  have  in- 
dicated he  is  more  frequently  known  as  *'Bula  Matadi," 
the  title  now  bestowed  on  all  officials  in  the  Congo.  It 
was  at  Matadi  that  Stanley  received  the  designation  be- 
cause he  blasted  a  road  through  the  rocks  with  dynamite. 

With  its  winding  and  mountainous  streets  and  its 
polyglot  population,  Matadi  is  a  picturesque  spot.  It  is 
the  goal  of  every  official  through  the  long  years  of  his 
service  in  the  bush  for  at  this  place  he  boards  the 
steamer  that  takes  him  to  Europe.  This  is  the  pleasant 
side  of  the  picture.  On  the  other  hand,  Matadi  is  where 
the  incoming  ocean  traveller  first  sets  foot  on  Congo 
soil.  If  it  happens  to  be  the  wet  season  the  foot  is 
likely  to  be  scorched  for  it  is  by  common  consent  one  of 
the  hottest  spots  in  all  the  universe.  That  well-known 
fable  about  frying  an  egg  in  the  sun  is  an  every-day 
reality  here  six  months  of  the  year. 

Matadi  is  the  administrative  center  of  the  Lower 
Congo  railway  which  has  extensive  yards,  repair-shops, 
and  hospitals  for  whites  and  blacks.  Nearby  are  the 
storage  tanks  and  pumping  station  of  the  oil  pipe  line 
that  extends  from  Matadi  to  Kinshassa.  It  was  in- 
stalled just  before  the  Great  War  and  has  only  been 
used  for  one  shipment  of  fluid.  With  the  outbreak  of 
hostilities  it  was  impossible  to  get  petroleum.  Now  that 
peace  has  come,  its  operations  will  be  resumed  because 


282         AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

it  is  planned  to  convert  many  of  the  Congo  River 
steamers  into  oil-burners. 

Tied  up  at  a  Matadi  quay  was  "The  Schoodic,"  one  of 
the  United  States  Shipping  Board  war-built  freighters. 
The  American  flag  at  her  stern  gave  me  a  real  thrill  for 
with  the  exception  of  the  solitary  national  emblem  I 
had  seen  at  Tshikapa  it  was  the  first  I  had  beheld  since 
I  left  Capetown.  I  lunched  several  times  on  board  and 
found  the  international  personnel  so  frequent  in  our 
merchant  marine.  The  captain  was  a  native  of  the 
West  Indies,  the  first  mate  had  been  born  in  Scotland, 
the  chief  engineer  was  a  Connecticut  Yankee,  and 
the  steward  a  Japanese.  They  were  a  happy  family 
though  under  the  Stars  and  Stripes  and  we  spent  many 
hours  together  spinning  yarns  and  wishing  we  were 
back  home. 

In  the  Congo  nothing  ever  moves  on  schedule  time. 
I  expected  to  board  the  steamer  immediately  after  my 
arrival  at  Matadi  and  proceed  to  Antwerp.  There  was 
the  usual  delay,  and  I  had  to  wait  a  week.  Hence  the 
diversion  provided  by  "The  Schoodic"  was  a  godsend. 

The  blessed  day  came  when  I  got  on  "The  Anvers- 
ville"  and  changed  from  the  dirt  and  discomfort  of  the 
river  boat  and  the  colonial  hotel  to  the  luxury  of  the 
ocean  vessel.  It  was  like  stepping  into  paradise  to 
get  settled  once  more  in  an  immaculate  cabin  with  its 
shining  brass  bedstead  and  the  inviting  bathroom 
adjacent.  I  spent  an  hour  calmly  sitting  on  the  divan 
and  revelling  in  this  welcome  environment.  It  was  al- 
most too  good  to  be  true. 

Nelson  remained  with  me  to  the  end.  He  helped  the 
stewards  place  my  luggage  in  the  ship,  which  was  the 
first  liner  he  had  ever  seen.  He  was  almost  appalled 
at  its  magnitude.    I  asked  him  if  he  would  like  to  ac- 


a 


AMERICA   IN    THE    CONGO  283 

company  me  to  Europe.  He  shook  his  head  solemnly 
and  said,  "No,  master.  The  ship  is  too  big  and  I  am 
afraid  of  it.  I  want  to  go  home  to  Elizabethville."  As 
a  parting  gift  I  gave  him  more  money  that  he  had  ever 
before  seen  in  his  life.  It  only  elicited  this  laconic 
response,  "Now  I  am  rich  enough  to  buy  a  wife."  With 
these  words  he  bade  me  farewell. 

"The  Anversville"  was  another  agreeable  surprise. 
She  is  one  of  three  sister  ships  in  the  service  of  the 
Compagnie  Beige  Maritime  du  Congo.  The  other  two 
are  "The  Albertville"  and  "The  Elizabethville."  The 
original  "Elizabethville"  was  sunk  by  a  German  sub- 
marine during  the  war  off  the  coast  of  France.  These 
vessels  are  big,  clean,  and  comfortable  and  the  service 
is  excellent. 

All  vessels  to  and  from  Europe  stop  at  Boma,  the 
capital  of  the  Congo,  which  is  five  hours  steaming  down 
river  from  Matadi.  We  remained  here  for  a  day  and  a 
half  because  the  Minister  of  the  Colonies  was  to  go 
back  on  "The  Anversville."  I  was  glad  of  the  oppor- 
tunity for  it  enabled  me  to  see  this  town,  which  is  the 
mainspring  of  the  colonial  administration.  The  palace 
of  the  Governor-General  stands  on  a  commanding  hill 
and  is  a  pretentious  establishment.  The  original  capi- 
tal of  the  Congo  was  Vivi,  established  by  Stanley  at  a 
point  not  far  from  Matadi.  It  was  abandoned  some 
year  ago  on  account  of  its  undesirable  location.  There 
is  a  strong  sentiment  that  Leopoldville  and  not  Boma 
should  be  the  capital  and  it  is  not  unlikely  that  this 
change  will  be  made. 

The  Minister  of  the  Colonies  and  Monsieur  Henry, 
the  Governor-General,  who  also  went  home  on  our  boat, 
received  a  spectacular  send-off.  A  thousand  native 
troops  provided  the  guard  of  honour  which  was  drawn 


284         AN   AFRICAN   ADVENTURE 

up  on  the  bank  of  the  river.  Native  bands  played,  flags 
waved,  and  the  populace,  which  included  hundreds  of 
blacks,  shouted  a  noisy  farewell. 

Slowly  and  majestically  the  vessel  backed  away  from 
the  pier  and  turned  its  prow  downstream.  With 
mingled  feelings  of  relief  and  regret  I  watched  the 
shores  recede  as  the  body  of  the  river  viddened.  Near  the 
mouth  it  is  twenty  miles  wide  and  hundreds  of  feet  deep. 

At  Banana  Point  I  looked  my  last  on  the  Congo 
River.  For  months  I  had  followed  its  winding  way 
through  a  land  that  teems  with  hidden  life  and  resists 
the  inroads  of  man.  I  had  been  lulled  to  sleep  by  its  dull 
roar;  I  had  observed  its  varied  caprice;  I  had  caught  the 
glamour  of  its  subtle  charm.  Something  of  its  vast  and 
mysterious  spirit  laid  hold  of  me.  Now  at  parting  the 
mighty  stream  seemed  more  than  ever  to  be  invested 
with  a  tenacious  human  quality.  Sixty  miles  out  at  sea 
its  sullen  brown  current  still  vies  with  the  green  and 
blue  of  che  ocean  swell.  It  lingers  like  the  spell  of  all 
Africa. 

The  Congo  is  merely  a  phase  of  the  larger  lure. 


INDEX 


Albert,  King  of  Belgium,  141, 226,  240 

Albert,  Lake,  60, 180 

Alberta,  208,  209,  211,  212,  214 

Albertville,  60 

Ants,  155,  156 

Armour,  J.  Ogden,  125 

Bailey,  Sir  Abe,  135 
Ball,  Sidney  H.,  244,  245 
Baluba.  203 

Bangala,  The,  194  195,  200,  203 
Barclay,  Mrs.  Edwin,  265 
Barclay,  Mr.  Edwin,  265,  270 
BamatO;  Barney,  70-80,  86 
Basuto,  92 

Bechuanaland,  103,  106-108,  113 

Behr,  H.  C,  86 

Beira,  119,  127,  150 

Belgian  Congo,  59,  81,  107,  124,  125, 

130,  13&-177,  225,  227-230,  241- 

284 
Benguella,  151 
Bia  Expedition,  241 
Bolobo,  202 
Botha,   General,  16-17,  19,  22,  23, 

24-26,  38,  39,  74,  98 
Braham,  I.  F.,  212,  213,  214 
Brandsma,  Father,  192,  193 
British  South  Africa  Company,  108- 

111,  115,  126-127 
Broken  Hill  Railway,  146 
Bukama,  61,  160,  163 
Bulawayo,     104-106,   112,  113,   127, 

130,  134.  135,  144,  150 
Bunge,  Edward,  244 
Butner,  Daniel,  149 
Butters,  Charles,  86,  88 

Cairo,  57 
Cameroons,  100, 101 


Campbell,  J.  G.,  167-168 
"Cape-boy,"  93 
Cape  Colony,  23,  64 
"Cape-to-Cairo,"  57-101,  108,  146, 

150-151 
Capetown,  17,  28-30,  57,  68,  74,  76, 

104,  105,  114 
Camahan,  Thomas,  149 
Carrie,  Albert,  248-249 
Carson,  Sir  Edward,  27 
Casement,  Sir  Roger,  100,  142 
Chaka,  105 

Chaplin,  Sir  Drummond,  10^110 
Chilembwe,  John,  94 
Clement,  Victor  M.,  86,  88 
Cleveland,  President,  227 
Cleveland,  Rev.  Roy  Fields,  277,  278 
"Comte  de  Flandre,"  189-192,  197 
Congo-Kasai  Province,  221,  246,  248 
Congo  River,  The,  69,  140-145,  163, 

160-162,  179-284 
Coquilhatville,  201-202,  216 
Crane,   Mr.  and  Mrs.  Charles  L., 

278-279 
Creswell,  Col.  F.  H.  P.,  29-30 
Cullinan,  Thomas  M.,  90 
Curtis,  J.  S.,  86,  88 

Davis,  Charles  H.,  277,  278 

Dean,  Captain,  187,  188 

DeBeers,  78-80,  129 

Delcommime,  Alexander,  243-244 

Diamonds,  64, 76, 77-90, 94, 134, 1.3IB, 
146,  152,  244,  265;  Congo  Fields, 
265-269;  Congo  Output,  152 

Djoko  Punda,  225,  247,  255,  269,  276, 
276 

Doyle,  Donald,  259,  262,  267 

Doyle,  Mrs.  Donald,  264 

Dubois,  Lieutenant,  187-188 

Dunn,  Dr.  John,  262 


286 


INDEX 


Durban  69 
Dutoitspan  Mine,  81 

Elizabethville,   145,   147,   148,   149, 
153,  157,  181 

Fairbairn,  Henry,  277,  278 


Johannesburg,  30,  65,  76,  78,  84,  85' 

89,  93,  103,  105,  244 
Johnston,  Sir  Harry,  197,  201,  203, 

212,  255 

Kabalo,  60,  165 

Kabambaie,  258,  259,  275  276 


Forminiere,  The,  225-228,  232-234,      Kaffir,  64,  71,  82,  92,  266 


237,  256,  257.  261,  277 
Franck,  Louis,  169-176,  179 
Francqui,  Emile,  239-243 
Fungurume,  157,  160 

George,  Lloyd,  15,  38,  40^2,  45 
German  East  Africa,  70,  101,  166 
German  South-West  Africa,  25,  70, 

73,  81,  99,  101,  152 
Germany  in  Africa,  98-101,  1^0,  151, 

165,  166,  174,  210,  216,  231 
Gerome,  157, 181 
Gordon,  General,  58,  187 
GrenfeU,  George,  198,  201,  203,  255 
Grey,  George,  147 
Groote  Schuur,  32-34,  36,  41,  47,  53, 

114 
Guggenheim,  Daniel,  235 


Kahew,  Frank,  149 

Kambove,  149,  150 

Karoo,  77 

Kasai  River,  95-96,  156,  189,  191, 

199,  217,  223,  225,  227,  246,  247, 

249,  253-258,  264,  269,  275 
Katanga,    145-146,    147,    148,    149, 

150-153,  165,  174-175,  181,  194, 

226,241 
Kimberley,  64,  76,  77,  90,  94,  134, 

135, 146,  154,  244,  265 
Kindu,  69,  168-169,  170 
Kinshassa,  153,  190,  201,  216,  217, 

221-222,  247,  275,  281 
Kitchener,  Lord,  15,  39,  77 
Kito,  180-181 
Kongolo,  59, 166, 168, 177 
Kruger,  Paul,  22,  38,  47,  87-88,  89, 

100, 107 


Hammond,  John  Hays,  84,  86,  88,  '     .-' onn  ooa 

128-129,  235  ^^"  ^'''^''  ^^'  ^^^'  ^^^ 
Harriman,  E.  H.,  238,  239 

Hellman,  Fred,  86  Labram,  George,  82-83 

Hertzog,  General  W.  B.  M.,  25-28,  Lane,  Capt.  E.  F.  C,  43 


46,  50-51,  53 
Hex  River,  76 
Honnold,  W.  L.,  86 
Horner,  Preston  K.,  149,  157 
Hottentot,  92,  93 
Hoy,  Sir  William  W.,  66-67 
Huileries  du  Congo  Beige,  189,  208- 

212,  222,  226,  263 


Leggett,  T.  H.,  86 

Leopold,  King,  106,  139,  142,  15Q 

158,  226,  227,  228,  229,  230-235> 

244,  245 
LeopoldviUe,  221,  222 
Leverhulme,  Lord,  189,  208,  248 
Leverville,  209 
Lewaniki,  125 


Livingstone,  Dr.,  184,  185,  254 

Jadot,  Jean,  237-238,  239,  241,  243  Lobengula,  105,  106,  112,  115,  134 

Jameson,  Raid,  23, 86, 87, 89, 100, 115  "Louis  Cousin,"  160-162 

Jameson,   Sir  Starr  80,  89,  106,  111,  Lowa,  170 

117   136  Lualaba  River,  59,  60,  160,  161-164, 
Janot,'  N.,  245  168,  170,  177,  190,  191,  197 

Jenkins,  Hennen,  86,  87  Luluaburg,  215 

Jennings,  Sidney,  86  Lusanga,  249,  251 


INDEX 


287 


Mabonda  Mine,  265,  270 
"Madeleine,"  252-264,  276 
Mafeking,  103 
Maguire,  Rochfort,  107 
Mahagi,  59-60,  62 
Maize,  124-125 
Mashonaland,  106,  111-112 
Matabele,    103,   105,   106,  112,   113, 

115,  126,  134 
Matadi,  279-281,  282 
Matopo  Hills,  113-114,  115,  135 
McMiUan,  William,  267 
McMillan,  Mrs.  William,  268 
Mein,  Capt.  Thomas,  86,  88 
Mein,  W.  W.,  86 
Merriman,  J.  X.,  94 
Milner,  Lord,  118 
Mohun,  R.  D.  L.,  244,  245,  246 
Moody,  G.  D.,  256,  257,  258,  259, 

261,  276 
Morgan,  J.  P.   74,  228,  238 
Morrison,  Rev.  W.  M.,  273 
Moul,  R.  D.,  1,43 

Nanda,  254,  255 

Natal,  21,  23,  78,  122 

Nelson,  181-182,  248,  257,  258,  276, 

282,  283 
Newport,  Glenn  H.,  271 
Nile  River,  59,  60,  175 
Nyassaland,  94,  142 

Oliver,  Roland  B.,  245 
Orange  Free  State,  21,  23,  25,  50, 
106,  139 

Perkins,  H.  C,  86 

Plumer,  Lord,  113 

Ponthierville,  59,  152,  170 

Port  Elizabeth,  72,  77 

Portuguese  East  Africa,  106, 112, 113, 

150 
Prester,  John,  94 
Pretoria,  47,  76,  90,  93 

Rand,  The,  84-85,  86,  87, 89, 152, 249 

Reid,  A.  E.  H.,  245 

R«id,  C.  A.,  245 

Rey,  General  de  la,  25,  45 


Rhodes,  Cecil,  17,  20,  32,  58,  60-61, 
77-83,  86,  104-110,  114-121,  125, 
129-137,  150,  165,  186,  230 

Rhodesia,  18,  33,  59,  94,  103-110, 
114-121,  122-131 

Roberts,  Lord,  16 

Robinson,  J.  B.,  85 

Robison,  J.  E.,  256,  258 

Rondebosch,  32 

Roos,  Tielman,  53-54 

Roosevelt,  Theodore,  19 

Rudd,  C.  D.,  107 

Ryan,  Thomas  F.,  228,  232-235,  244, 
275 

Sabin,  Charles  H.,  74 

Sakania,  144 

Sanford,  General  H.  S.,  227,  228 

Selous,  F.  C.,  Ill 

Seymour,  Louis,  86 

Shaler,  MUlard  K.,  245 

Smartt,  Sir  Thomas,  62 

Smith,  Hamilton,  86 

Smuts,  Jan  Christian,  15-20,  23,  24- 

26,  28,  29-56,  98 
Snow,  Frederick,  149 
Societe  Generate,  234-236,  239 
Solvay,  Edmond,  244 
Soudan  Railway,  60 
Stanley,  Henry  M.,  159, 166, 170, 177, 

183,  184,  185-188,  194,  196,  201, 

203,  217,  218-221,  227,  228,  230, 

255,  262 
Stanley  Pool,  218,  222,  279 
Stanleyville,  59,  162,  166,  168,   169, 

175,  177-180,  183,  186,  189,   190, 

196,  200 
Steyne,  President,  49 
Stoddard,  Lothrop,  96 
Stonelake,  Dr.,  202 

Tambeur,  General,  165 
Tanganyika  Lake,  60,  142,  150,  166, 

169 
Teneriffe,  69 
Thompson,  F.  R.,  107 
Thompson,  Samuel,  86 
Thompson,  W.  B.,  74 
Thys,  General  Albert,  279,  280 


288 


INDEX 


Tippo  Tib,  166,  184-180  Ward,  Herbert,  184-188,  308 

Togoland,  100-101  Warriner,  Ruel  C,  80 

"Tony",  133  Webb,  H.  H.,  86 

Transvaal,  21,  23,  50,  106  Webber,  George,  86 

Tshikapa,  247,  256,  259,  262,  263,      Wheeler,  A.  E.,  149 


264,  265,  267,  275,  282 

Uganda,  59 

Union  of  South  Africa,  18,  20,  23 

Van  den  Hove,  Adrian  M.,  251-252 

VenezUos,  15 

Vemer,  S.  P.,  244 

Victoria  Falls,  104, 127, 130-132 

Vryburg,  119 

Zambesi  Eiver,  18,  109,  131-132 
Wallace,  Major  Claude,  212,  213,  214      Zambesia,  108 
Wallace,  Mrs.  Claude,  212  Zimbabwe  Ruins,  130 

Wangermee,  General  Emile,  148  Zulu,  64,  71,  82,  92,  93,  266 

Wankie,  128 


Whitney,  Harry  Payne,  235 
Williams,  Gardner  F.,  82,  88 
Williams,  Robert,  61,  146,  150,  151, 

175 
Wilson,  Woodrow,  37,  40,  42,  43,  50 
Wissman,  Herman,  255 

Yale,  Thomas,  149 
Yeatman,  Pope,  86 


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